


All Silent Save the Dripping Rain

by lady__sansa_stark



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - The Rain / H2O, Descriptions of dead bodies in chapter 2 onwards, Don't Drink the Water, F/M, Heavy dosage of the "creepy" for creepyshipping too tbh, Horror, Psychological Thriller, Some of them get a bit icky later on, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-20 04:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 65,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8236589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady__sansa_stark/pseuds/lady__sansa_stark
Summary: "It's in the water."Sansa thought it had to be a prank. A morbid sense of humor, for someone to go into every radio station and have them repeat that same line over and over. The words repeated so often Sansa lost sense of their meaning. She thought, after having been forcibly displaced from the North, it was just the way King's Landing was. Everything here was different: the weather, the people, the sense of humor. Surely it was a prank.But it wasn't. It was a warning.





	1. lull before the storm

**Author's Note:**

> [Bit of a backstory chapter that will totally make sense in the later chapters trust me. ao3 kept crashing when I tried to post so hopefully it looks okay! Also creepstache shall make his (dramatic) appearance in the next chapter!]

            Summers in King’s Landing were notorious for the heat. Flocks of both seagulls and college students arrived at the start of every summer season, staying long past their welcomes. The city sat overlooking the Blackwater Bay, and the beach itself was full of half-naked, sweaty bodies and litter and – for the unlucky – half-buried animal or human refuse. Add in those pesky seagulls, nipping at whoever was least guarded, biting at food scraps and unsupervised belongings and dangling bikini laces. It was a wonder how anyone managed to  _relax_ at the beach. But the heat also brought along humidity, the worst kind within miles. A combination of the sun and the city’s endless energy consumption created the sticky sort of air. The sort that made you disgustingly wet walking three city blocks, as though you took a casual dive in the beach. And the unescapable whiff of bodies around every turn, inside or out, still wasn’t enough to make people realize that King’s Landing wasn’t at all how brochures made it out to be.

            Summers like these – with the endless blue skies and the relentless sun and pinkened flesh – were the sorts of summers Sansa never experienced back home in the North. Oh how she bugged and begged her parents to take the family down South for a single week’s vacation, to know what it felt like to be cradled in the sun’s warmth at any hour. She instead managed to will her parents to go only so far as the Riverlands, which had its own terrible mugginess and never-ending supply of mosquitos. She wasn’t sure which was worse: the seagulls or the mosquitos.

            Summers in King’s Landing was its own level of terribleness; its own form of  _punishment_  for Sansa’s relentless pleading.

            Now she would never leave.

            Sansa stared up at the sky, at the expanse of blue reaching over the horizon. The North seemed so impossibly far away now, especially with this change of weather. Winterfell had brisk summers and a lazy sun that felt as though you were being hugged through the chill wind (and the occasional leftover piles of snow. She loved discovering those in the deep woods whilst hiking with her siblings). Winterfell had wonderful weather, her family, and her home.

            This was her home now, she remembered bitterly. The man inside – no, the  _boy_  – was her betrothed, and this constant humidity seemed to be her only friend. And those seagulls; how could she forget them.

            What Sansa would give to go back in time and change  _everything_.

            It was midday sometime. The temperature continued rocketing over any  _humane_  level. And yet, citizens of King’s Landing went about their daily lives as though the weather was normal.

            But it wasn’t. The sky she had been staring at – in an attempt to avoid the music and the alcohol and the people – had been forming small, puffy clouds for some time now. They just appeared, one at a time. Like little sheep grazing about in the sky, gathering friends and family as they traveled towards the coast. White and fluffy and bouncing on and on, looking for their home in King’s Landing too. Sansa wanted to shoo at them, to tell them better weather and better people were found up North. She wasn’t drunk enough for that, though – she was hardly drunk at all.

            It was Joffrey’s nineteenth name-day. And despite the heat, he planned to get as wasted as humanly possible.

            He was definitely doing a terrific job achieving his goal. And Sansa, well, she was doing her job being here, in King’s Landing, ensuring that her family was safe back home.

            No, back at Winterfell. King’s Landing was her home now.

            Sansa turned away from the sheep-clouds to glance inside at the party. Even out here on the balcony the stench of drunken breath and sweat and drugs (and something else, something  _human_  in less polite form) was suffocating. She wondered if the drink made the heat and the smell bearable.

            And there he was: her  _loving betrothed_. At the center of attention, his golden curls bouncing as he flailed to the music with dozens of friends and strangers. The drink in his hand was sloshing onto the clothes of whoever was nearest, and every few beats his free hand would smack into whoever was nearest. He was horribly wasted and a godawful dancer. Though no one in their right mind – drunk or otherwise – would dare cross the Little Lannister Lion.

            Sansa had only been in King’s Landing – and been Joffrey’s official fiancée – for two weeks. She didn’t want to think about the next four years being engaged to him as ‘college sweethearts.’ And then the  _rest of her life_  being his wife. She wanted to gag and blame it on the stench.

            But the Little Lannister Lion had reasons (read: excuses) on why he punished any who dared think to raise a finger against him. His grandfather was Prime Minister, and his father had been shortly before an untimely death. Though late in his prime, Tywin would one day die and pass off the entirety of Westeros to this spoilt child. It was barbaric, thinking Joffrey could run anything other than his mouth when things never went his way. And even then, that mouth more often than not spewed out something along the lines of ‘my grandfather will hear of this.’ And, if Joffrey was in an especially good mood: ‘I’ll have your head, you fucking prick.’

            What a charming young man Sansa managed to ensnare.

            A charming young man who just upturned his stomach of booze onto another poor young man. As though the party hadn’t smelt terribly already.

            Some were running for the balcony or the other side of the apartments. Others laughed and chugged more beer, Joffrey included. In his drunken stupor he glanced at her, and she had to smile like it was all some laughable faux pas. He accepted her smile with a drunken wave of his head, and went searching for someone else who  _disapproved_  of the future-PM’s antics.

            Chatter began to drown out the music again as the party-goers brushed off Joffrey’s puke (figuratively and literally), continuing to drink the afternoon away.

            Sansa was turning back to check up on her flock of clouds when she saw

Even with – what Sansa could only assume – the deathly stench of vomit on her betrothed’s breath and body,  _she_  sidled right up next to him, double-fisting drinks. Joffrey took a drink in one hand and her waist in the other. He seemed torn: booze or women.

            But why  _her_.

            Margaery Tyrell. Sweet and beautiful, and a completely conniving snake.

            The whole of King’s Landing and their cousins knew that Margaery – and the Tyrells in particular – were dying for Joffrey’s hand in marriage the moment his father overthrew the Targaryans and proclaimed himself Prime Minister.  The wife of the future Prime Minister of all of Westeros; one couldn’t get any higher than that unless they were the PM themselves. And Margaery was the Tyrell’s pawn that seemed oh-too-eager to cozy her body against whoever got her there. Who at the moment was Sansa’s betrothed himself.

            Sansa didn’t hate Margaery because she was currently grinding her hips against Joffrey’s. In fact, Sansa was almost relieved that she hadn’t needed to take part in any of the name-day pleasantries other than show up and be there. If Margaery was more than willing to take Sansa’s spot as Joffrey’s plaything for the night, Sansa wouldn’t dare pass up the opportunity.

            But Margaery was so two-faced. She was pleasant at first, when Sansa arrived at King’s Landing, throwing out an invitation of friendship. Admittedly, Sansa was thrilled that someone other than Joffrey (and his mother) noticed her and wanted anything to do with the transplanted wolf. But not even a day passed before Sansa caught Margaery practically undressing herself ( _I’m just being casual_ ) before Joffrey and trying to worm her way into the Lion’s bed and marriage vows.

            She still kept up the façade of friendship.

            They were practically fucking, if it were possible to have sex fully-clothed and fully-drunk in the middle of a dance floor with alcohol in one hand. Sansa wouldn’t know.

            She turned away, setting her near-full drink on the railing, and began counting sheep.

            For each one she gave her engagement band a twirl.  _One_. The clouds were closer,  _way_  closer than Sansa would have expected.  _Two_. And it wasn’t so much a flock rather than an army.  _Three four five_. Was it possible for sheep to build an army? To train against humans forcing them in an endless cycle of jumping fences in dreamscapes.  _Six._ Anything was possible if the sheep put their minds to it, Sansa supposed.  _Seven eight_. And this army of grey sheep were calling their brethren forward to storm the beaches.

            “Bitching party, right?” Someone slurred beside her, almost falling down on the railing. He caught his balance, but his drink tumbled over the edge and down the six floors to the pavement.

            “Yeah, Joffrey is having a wonderful name-day,” she replied. Sansa continued to twirl her ring as she turned to face the boy.

            He was about her height, an inch or two taller, with dark hair and dark, wild eyes, with a smile that would have looked bent even without the drink. She smelt that pestering odor of heat on him, but for some reason she didn’t smell the drink. He probably just arrived, she thought. Only to lose his drink to clumsiness.

            He pulled one hand away from the railing and offered it to her. “I’m Rams. Like the sheep.” She gripped his tentatively in a light shake as he let loose a pathetic  _baaa_.

            He’s definitely drunk, she thought. “Sansa. Spot-on impression. Can you do any others?”

            Rams wavered against the railing. He cleared his throat once, twice, before unleashing an even more pathetic whine. It sounded like a cat drunk on catnip, falling off a couch and lazily calling out for help.

            Sansa stared at him, dumbstruck. “Lovely, um, seal?”

            He guffawed, hideously, slapping the railing at her guess. His eyes flared wider as he stared at her with a ridiculous, drunken grin. “Not even close! You need to get out more, meet some things…and do some things.” Rams brought his hand up to cover a burp, but missed. “A dying wolf, actually.”

            Sansa’s heart missed a beat. “A…what?”

            “That ‘seal.’ It was a dying wolf,” he clarified. “Animals make some of the most  _beautiful_  sounds as they die, you know.”

            She had nothing to say, nothing to respond to something like  _that_.

            Still he persisted. “You’re, um. You’re Joffrey’s thing, right?” Was there even an actual definition for her? What she was, what she was doing for the sake of her family. Sansa saw him look inside where Joffrey was most likely still grinding against Margaery. “You know, um,” Rams began, scratching at his chin. “If you ever wanna get back at Joffrey, you could, with me.”

            She blinked her eyes, in disbelief and in shock. Sansa could not deny that Rams wasn’t  _un_ attractive, but she couldn’t see herself going so far to be petty towards someone like  _Joffrey_. Rather, she figured it would work out worse for her if she accepted Rams’ offer. Joffrey was not the sort of boy that liked sharing.

            “I’m fine,” she said flatly, and Rams – finally – took that as his awkward cue to leave. He staggered back inside in search of another drink and a girl more willing (and plastered) to laugh at his jokes. Just before he became lost in the throng of strangers, he looked back and gave another of his howls.

            Sansa shivered at the memory of Lady.

            Her parents, her siblings, her wolf. They were all lost to her. Joffrey’s father mysteriously died a few months ago, and her own father was well-known as being an old acquaintance of Robert’s. Eddard was not content to accept Robert’s death as an  _accident_ , as much as his now-widow and father-in-law proclaimed. Her father knew there was something wrong, with the death and these Lions that so eagerly grabbed at the leadership of Westeros. So Eddard did what he thought was best, for him and the nation: a succession of the North. Nearly all the houses of the North loved Eddard Stark, would have followed him across the sea and into infinity if Eddard gave the command. Because they knew Eddard would be there beside him.

            Scant weeks after the North declared itself an independent nation free of Westeros’ control, the Lannisters paid the Starks a  _kind_  visit. A façade, of course. A political meeting to discuss terms to repeal the succession and keep the North in the Lion’s claws. The North was the largest county of the whole of Westeros, though much of it was wildlife and mountains. It had been suspected had even one of the smallest island families planned a succession instead, the Lannisters would have done anything to keep the whole of Westeros in line and under their control.

            The meeting was hardly a meeting. A threat: stay under the Lannister’s claws, or declare war against the entirety of Westeros with succession. Eddard – against the crying rallies of some Northern houses, and even Southron houses that detested the Lannister Lions – agreed.

            But Lions are not so easy to forgive. They required (read: forced) Eddard to give up his eldest daughter as leverage, as a contingency should the North entertain any other  _whimsy_  of leaving. Any part of the North squeaking ideas of succession again, and Sansa would never see another dawn.

            And on their journey from the wild North, Sansa brought Lady. Her only companion amongst this dreadful sea of Lions and animals drunk on the Lannister’s illusion of endless power and wealth.

            Lady made it three days’ journey South before Lady ran away because someone  _accidentally_  failed to tie her leash properly. There were strands of wolf hair on the coat of Joffrey’s favorite guard the next morning. She knew Joffrey ordered it; he hated Lady because Lady would not bow to the future Lannister Lion.

            A loud crash brought Sansa back to the party. Someone knocked over a table and was running out the door for their life, but Joffrey, it seemed, hadn’t noticed. Sansa felt exhausted, the weight of Lady’s death dampening the raucous aura of the party, and began shoving drunkards aside in search of the exit. There were so many of them. No way Joffrey had this may friends. No way he even had  _one_ , she thought with a small smile, continuing to weave her way through the bodies (and the stench). Sansa hoped whatever she was stepping through was just alcohol.

            She was halfway through – she knew because Joffrey was there, four feet in front of her, the proverbial center of attention in whatever he did. Even the light seemed to shine particularly on his curls, almost drawn to his presence. And Margaery was there, too, clinging on to him,  _clawing_  at his arms and chest as though she was afraid of losing him. “A blessing, losing him,” Sansa murmured.

            As though he heard her, Joffrey pulled his mouth away from Margaery (but not his hands, they were in a death-grip upon Margaery’s ass, the latter of which was practically exposed). His eyes blinked as he stared at Sansa, trying to draw her into focus, trying to remember that the girl currently pressed against was not his intended. Joffrey’s mouth was red and bruising from Margaery’s.

            “My betrothed,” he drawled through the alcohol coursing through him. People immediately dropped their conversations at the sound of his voice, too terrified to disobey the Lion, and equally as curious about this lost wolf. The music continued to thrum in Sansa’s head, her heart.

            Joffrey managed, with some effort, to disengage one hand from Margaery’s ass to clamp onto the girl’s face. He twisted her neck so they were both looking at Sansa, observing her, with half-lidded eyes and open, red mouths. He didn’t say anything else before he reunited their mouths, his hand on her face stumbling up into Margery’s hair to painfully yank it back. His other hand, Sansa unfortunately noticed, was gleefully making its way underneath the short dress.

            Sansa had half a mind to close the gap and slap some much,  _much_ -needed sense into her betrothed.

            But she also had the half a mind to know that every pair of eyes were on her. She could feel the anticipation of the party-goers, itching Sansa to do something  _wonderfully_  stupid and bring some life back into the party. Something like slapping her fiancé and his Tyrell plaything.

            But Joffrey was drunk. Riotously drunk. Sansa did not want to encounter Joffrey drunk  _and_  pissed at her. He’s already showed sober displeasure enough in bruises under her clothes. Here, with tens of guests and with an open affront to the Lion himself… Sansa could only imagine the horrors he would come up with to  _punish_  her.

            So she balled up her emotions and her fists and stormed out.

            She felt her tears stinging at the corners of her eyes, her knees wobbling as they carefully avoided the discarded bodies and cups littered throughout. Between her family and Lady and this gods-awful marriage… Sansa had to congratulate herself on not losing her temper.

            Sansa made it as far as the elevators before she heard the heavy slam of the door slamming against the hallway and the even heavier stomp of feet towards her. The elevator, as always, was never around when you needed it.

            Her body whirled around and collided against the elevator doors, stars flickering behind her eyelids. Her teeth bit her tongue and she tasted her own blood.

            “What. The.  _Fuck_. Do you think. You’re doing?”

            He was so impossibly drunk he barely had the breath for three words. The air around him was thick with booze and vomit, that Sansa nearly gave Joffrey a taste of his own medicine, managing with some difficulty to swallow back the bile.

            She opened her eyes, and wished she hadn’t.

            Joffrey was  _furious_. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, staring directly into hers for an answer. The flush in his cheeks from the booze only highlighted the temper, and even his bruised mouth gave him an otherworldly demonic appearance. The fingers in Sansa’s hair tightened as she remained silent, and his other hand pushed her shoulder further into the metal.

            “ _Huh_?” he demanded.

            “I’m… I wasn’t feeling well,” she managed.

            “The fuck!” He cut her off, banging her head into the door again so hard she swore she heard something  _crack_. “The  _fuck_?”

            But he let go, backing away a step. Sansa cradled her head, digging through her hair for any sign of blood.

            Looking up at him made her head dizzy, and she wanted to throw up so badly. To vomit her stomach all over him, and to vomit the words that caught in her throat:  _I hate you_.

            Behind Joffrey, people were starting to crowd the hallway. They did nothing to stop him. At least, in some twisted way, they were smart enough to know not to cross him. Unlike me, she chided.

            Margaery stood there, too. Sansa caught a glance at her before someone else stood in her way. She was… She wasn’t smiling, but her face didn’t hold concern the way some of the others did. She looked almost  _relieved_ , thankful.

            Relieved that someone stupider wound up in the marriage.

            Sansa glanced back up at Joffrey. He was still fuming, his clenched hands shaking, but he had stopped. Stopped yelling and hurting his future wife.

            What a wonderful Prime Minister he’ll turn out to be, Sansa thought.

            And it seemed like that flash of the thought crossed Joffrey’s mind too. Surely his grandfather and mother warned him countlessly about his appearance and his actions. He was nineteen name-days old now, still far too young for major leadership. But he had to start young, they would tell him. Had to build up the appearance of strong, trusting leader like Tywin.

            Maybe amidst all the ‘ _fuck off_ ’s, Joffrey Lannister actually learned something.

            The elevator  _ding_ ed behind Sansa, and she stumbled backwards into it. She was thankful to finally be gone, at least for the day. Clutching her head with one hand, her other traveled to the Close Door button.

            “Wait,” Joffrey muttered. Or tried to; it came out as a mangled half-yell. He started backwards, moving through the crowd.

            Sansa’s hand trembled. She was so  _close_.

            Her fingers, against all her desires, pushed the Door Open button.

            Seconds later Joffrey stormed through the crowd again, shoving and yelling at them to “Move!” He barreled into someone double-fisting beer, and the whole gathering held their breaths as they awaited the murder.

            But Joffrey just told him to “Fuck off,” and continued towards Sansa.

            Once inside he slammed the Basement button. “My fiancée isn’t feeling well,” he shouted as the doors started closing. “I’ll meet you fucks on the roof for the after-party.”

            Sansa wondered what sorts of murders could be carried out in the span it took an elevator to descend seven floors.

            To her surprise, Joffrey didn’t enact any of them.

            As the doors  _ding_ ed open and they walked out, Sansa then wondered how well screams could be heard from this basement. How acoustic were the walls, and how loudly would she have to scream for someone to come to her rescue.

            Joffrey stumbled towards his car –  _one_  of his cars – and took some time managing to figure out which button unlocked the doors. Sansa crept towards him and the vehicle, still clutching her head, and silently prayed that when he crashed it would be a quick death.

            He revved up and tore through the parking lot, nearly clipping columns and cars on his way up and out onto the streets. And still he hadn’t said anything. But Sansa could have sworn, even above the sound of the engine and of pedestrians cursing him off, she heard Joffrey’s teeth grinding. His knuckles were white against the steering wheel and clutch. It was going against every Joffrey instinct, it seemed, to be a  _nice human being_.

            Sansa looked out the window and prayed to the gods a mixed message of ‘Thank you for not letting me die,’ with a PS of ‘Why did you let this happen to me?’

            The sheep army was advancing so fast that Sansa hadn’t realized how dark the streets were despite the hour. They were dark and weighed down towards the earth, conglomerated into a single monstrous sheep beginning to storm the beach of King’s Landing and take back the city. She thought she heard people screaming in the distance as the sheep began their attack.

            With a final swerve through a stop sign, narrowly dodging a prim-looking woman walking her small dog – both of which yapped at the car – Joffrey pulled into the winding lane that led towards the Red Keep. It housed the highest government officials and their families, as well as numerous workers for the seemingly-endless tasks and chores. The castle was perched atop a cliff edge, overlooking the Bay and the entirety of King’s Landing. Back in the day, when castles were structures for protection rather than merely symbol, the Red Keep stood tall and unyielding to whoever dared overthrow the rulers. In a way, its purpose held true to this day. It was nearly impossible to get in and assassinate the Prime Minister. Managing to take out even a servant was a feat in and of itself.

            And yet, the Lannisters managed it some twenty years ago. Dragons stood proudly at this castle for hundreds of years. Then Stags trounced and crowned themselves rulers. And now Lions lie in the den.

            Sansa thought Joffrey had half a mind to dump Sansa at the bottom of the lane leading up to the Red Keep. It was at least a half-mile trek. But Cersei Lannister, Joffrey’s mother, held her own sort of gala today in recognition of her son’s name-day. Sansa hadn’t caught much information concerning it other than: one, it was for the rich and pampered ladies of the Keep; and two, that Sansa was the only lady who was definitely not allowed to attend.

            Maybe the gala wouldn’t have been as terrible as Joffrey’s own party.

            So Joffrey drove up and up and over towards the back entrance, in an attempt to hide his betrothed from the prying, gossipy eyes of all of Cersei’s own ‘friends.’

            Sansa had opened the car door and began embracing the weightlessness of not having to deal with Joffrey for the rest of the night (and most of the next day, depending on how drunk and drugged-up he got) when he grabbed her arm. His fingernails dug deep, almost producing blood.

            “Don’t you fucking  _dare_  pull that shit again in public,” he said, meeting her eyes head-on. It seemed the drive sobered him up.

            Alone, Sansa had no reason not to try her earlier plan of slapping sense into this man-child. But the message was already well-received at the party: play the obedient, loving wife, and you won’t get hurt.

            “I’m sorry,” she said, hating every word. “I promise never to ridicule you again.”

            He considered her words and her face for a moment, debating whether or not to  _reinforce_  his message. But a pair of servants came rushing out, each carrying an umbrella and a coat. And so with prying eyes preventing him, he let her go without another word.

            She had barely closed the door behind her when Joffrey tore at the graveled road, kicking up rocks that bit at her legs, and left Sansa and the servants alone.

            One of the servants’ faces was so distraught at failing to give the items to the future-PM, that Sansa felt obliged to take her pair. It was only ten steps to the door, but she put the coat on regardless.

            It was getting cold, Sansa thought, even in the heart of summer. She glanced towards the Bay to check up on the sheep battalion. They managed to storm the beach, and were currently gaining on the unsuspecting civilians, who were all screaming at the unexpected rain. In a matter of minutes the sheep would climb their way up the winding path towards the Red Keep, up and up and up, swords and shields and the ready.

            The time of Dragons was long gone, and so too would the time of the Lions. A new era of Sheep would reign, and these rulers would be kind to their people. The country would grow prosperous, and the sheep would never harm the wolves. A Sheep-Wolf treaty, then.

            Sansa shook her head, laughing at herself, stepping inside the safety and warmth of the Red Keep. She was a girl of eighteen name-days, she had no business dreaming up lands of  _peace_  and  _prosperity_. The world wasn’t one of those nighttime tales her mother would tell her before bed. There were no savior sheep or gallant knights to sweep the fair maiden into safety. The world was far worse than she could have thought.

            The servants were gone, and Sansa didn’t know what to do with the coat and umbrella. It was still warm inside from the long hours of the sun earlier in the day, but the weight of the coat felt nice upon her shoulders. A hug, if not from her betrothed then the next best thing.

            She continued through the halls, swinging the closed umbrella in one hand, stopping off at the kitchens for a glass of water. The rooms were a frantic mess of bodies and orders. With the change in weather, servants ran to and fro to protect the gala, carrying large umbrellas and canopies and their own army of umbrellas. Sansa thought Cersei’s party would be better off moving inside instead, but remembered the force of nature that Cersei was. She would stand her ground even when the ground was crumbling towards hell. Joffrey was, by biological technicality, only half of his mother. Sansa shivered at the idea of receiving the full of Cersei Lannisters’ wrath, drunk or not.

            Up and up Sansa climbed, umbrella in one hand and water in the other. She heard the echoes of shouts and screaming drift up the tower with her. Their echoes muddled together against the staircase walls. The noise and the coat – those were her only companions tonight.

            Her rooms were modest, nothing compared to the apartments that Joffrey  _insisted_  on owning downtown. He claimed that he needed a quiet spot close to campus to study for when he began college in the fall. Sansa had no idea why he bothered with an excuse when his mother doted him with anything he wished. Perhaps for his Tywin, and the idea that Joffrey had to start  _thinking_. Small steps, she supposed.

            Sansa set her items down on the table, sipping the water as she searched the radio for something to drown out the screaming. It was old-fashioned, like the one in the family room back at Winterfell. Well, everything in Sansa’s rooms were old an out of style, but she loved them.

            Sansa would have thrilled at falling asleep to the sound of rain drumming against the walls. It would have reminded her of home – her real home. King’s Landing – no matter how hard it tried – would never be home, not in her heart. The wolf in her howled as the rain picked up, drumming harder and faster against the walls and windows. Even through the thick panes of glass the commotion of the gala made its way into the rooms. So much screaming, Sansa wondered whether or not King’s Landing  _ever_ got rain.

            There was only white noise on the radio, regardless of which station Sansa tuned to. She would have settled for a radio talk show – politics or gardening or  _anything_. But the meaningless noise was better than the sounds of the Keep.

            She felt the fear wean away as she snuggled into her sheets, thankful for the coat and the rain.

            If she pretended hard enough, she was back in Winterfell. Back home.

 


	2. chasing rainbows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I want to thank all of you for your love and encouragement! I hadn't thought this would be as well-received as it has already :D  
> Once again the writing got ahead of me and I felt the ending was a good stopping point. I promise much much more creepyshipping in the coming chapters. Hold on to your lemon cakes y'all; this is gonna be a bumpy ride.]

            There was someone else in Sansa’s rooms. A faint voice, crackling through the once-familiar chill that seeped under the thin blanket and coat that she was currently curled within. Sansa Stark was in Winterfell, in her room and snuggled in her bed. She lazily heard her younger siblings, off running through the early morning hours to get as much frolicking done before their parents demanded chores. Sansa imagined Arya running about collecting sticks to fight with; Bran exploring the nearby forest and clambering up trees to watch the world; and Rickon, playing in the courtyard with Shaggydog. To be young and carefree again, with that sort of relentless spirit.

            Sansa was like them too, when she was younger. Energetic and wild in her own style, filling her imagination with stories of gallant knights and rescued princesses. When Arya and Bran were babes and Rickon still in their mother’s womb, Sansa loved playing knights and princess with her elder brothers. Robb and Jon would take turns at either being the ‘bad’ knight that had captured the princess, or the ‘good’ one that had to save her. It was a silly game, she had to admit, and was more for Robb and Jon to have a go at one another with wooden swords. But there was a thrill for Sansa, too, hiding behind trees from the gaze of the bad knight and attempting to make her way back to safety. Or, if she felt her gallant knights were too preoccupied at whacking one another than in rescuing her, Sansa would create her own story. Like the one time she braved climbing a tree (her first and only time, far too many scrapes and bruises) and screamed that a dragon had carried her away. Robb and Jon – she forgot which was good and bad – spent an hour looking for her. It became a game of hide-and-go-seek, and had a squirrel not jumped at her, Sansa might have won.

            But Sansa wasn’t in Winterfell anymore.

            Her body shot up at the realization. The blanket fell, and she had to close the coat tighter around her body to keep in the warmth. Warmth which should have been abundant given her location in _King’s Landing_ and not _Winterfell_.

            But, it _was_ cold. Colder than King’s Landing ever saw, especially in these summer months. Sansa wasn’t certain if she saw faint wisps of her breath floating through the air. Her eyes frantically scanned her room, assessing whether or not the last two weeks had been a terrible nightmare. There, hanging at the closet, were the new summer dresses she had bought because her future mother-in-law and proclaimed (read: complained) that the grey woolen ones she brought from up North were not up to par. Cersei had been right, Sansa begrudgedly admitted. She would have melted in her Northern attire. But the underhanded way in which Cersei sent for clothes to be sent hours after her arrival did not go unnoticed.

            And there was that radio. It was wooden and worn and half of the face was faded from sitting beside the window for too long. From it, Sansa heard the telltale jumping static. A broadcast stuck between two worlds, praying for some brave soul to decide its fate.

            She had half a mind to shut it off and fall back to sleep. It was still early – incredibly early, by the angle of the sun seeping through the easterly window, naked of the curtains that she had no energy to draw yesterday. And then yesterday came flooding back like a terrible slap to the face.

            Or a terrible crash against an elevator door.

            The flesh at the back of her head was still tender from yesterday afternoon. Sansa hadn’t felt any dried blood or the telltale signs of a tear mending itself back to normal. She continued to lightly prod it – not in an ‘is it still there?’ confirmation, but as an afterthought – while she wondered the force required to cause damage. Was that why she was so tired after coming home from the party? Perhaps. If so, Sansa was lucky she woke up.

            And then there were the bruises. Her fingers exposed her left arm under the coat. Five small, round marks were dark against her pale skin. As she lowered the coat cuff, Sansa thought how they would be harder to hide than the others.

            Throwing the blanket over her shoulders and grasping it closed about her neck, Sansa slid out of her bed and towards the radio. It continued warbling in its cryptic language, beckoning her to translate and communicate with the lost souls on the airwaves. She rotated the dial, lining it up just right with the nearest station, and –

            “– water.”

            It stopped, the faint static filling the air. Sansa wondered whether she just missed out on another _exciting_ edition of the gardening program that one of their housekeepers back in Winterfell loved. Water at these specific hours, plant these specific seeds during these specific weeks, avoid these specific pest-bringing plants, yadda yadda. A brand new program every Sunday evening. Though not much foliage was hardy to survive the winters, the program and the kindly woman kept the gardens at Winterfell trimmed and beautiful. As much as Sansa loved walking through gardens and attempting to capture the colors in watercolor, she never had the patience for actual gardening. That, and it was far messier than she would have preferred.

            It had been a solid minute now. Nothing but faint static came from the radio. At the mention of water, Sansa realized how parched her throat was. She moved to fetch the glass she belatedly remembered carrying with her last night. It was still beside the umbrella. She blamed the thirst on the few sips of alcohol she had yesterday afternoon without consuming much else. Unlike everyone else at the party, absolutely drunk. And of course, never forgetting the man of the hour, Joffrey, as wasted as a man could be. She was about to wonder whether he would awaken today at all when -

            “It’s in the water.”

            Her mouth hovered inches from the glass before it fell.

            It bounced off the table, water spilling everywhere. Slowly it rolled towards the edge, creeping towards its doom. Sansa managed to stop it but only at the last second.

            She fumbled standing it back up before rushing towards the radio. “What did you say?” Sansa spoke to it, demanding to affirm the accusation. Demanding an _explanation_.

            She waited. Off in the distance a cacophony of birds chirped, approaching ever nearer before deciding on a better roost. Even the animals knew the Red Keep and King’s Landing was not the paradise brochures made it out to be.

            Finally, the radio spoke: “It’s in the water.”

            “What’s in the water?” she asked back immediately.

            Silence. It was just a radio, and the message was meant to be infuriatingly cryptic.

            A joke, she thought, as her fingers twirled the dial towards other stations. A cruel, terrible joke.

            “It’s in -”

            “It’s -”

            “- in the -”

            “– the water.”

            The other way round her fingers twirled, checking and double-checking and _triple-_ checking every station that the radio could access. Each one was the same.

            Frustrated, she flicked the radio off, and startled at the absence of static.

            A joke, that had to be it. She might have thought it to be Joffrey to creep inside her head (her fingers touched the bruises again) were she not certain he was still sleeping off the drink.

            Who else would it be? The voice of the message was male, someone older she imagined, but that was all Sansa was able to discern. It hadn’t sounded familiar. It could have been any of the _hundreds of thousands_ of people in King’s Landing.

            King’s Landing – a city of at least a million people, overcrowded in or out of season, and exceptionally bustling during the summer months – was unusually quiet this morning. Granted, Sansa roomed in the Red Keep rather than the city proper, but the Keep itself was a hub all on its own. Servants and housekeepers and government officials, all wandering and working around the premises non-stop. It was Sunday morning, Sansa idly thought. A quiet time, but not _dead silent_.

            She tied the blanket at her neck with a spare hair tie, threw on her shoes, and descended the stairs. She was still wearing her clothes from the party, which faintly smelt of alcohol and vomit.

            Dawn had arrived an hour or two ago, which meant the servants were busy preparing breakfast and tidying up any fresh messes that were brought in by late-night drunks. Often muddy footprints, occasionally the previous-night’s stomach if one didn’t make it (or physically could not make it) to the toilet. And even rarer, discarded clothing, though often in the heavier government halls of the Keep. Where Sansa stayed was primarily for the families, and her wing was specifically for those of the Prime Minister.

            Sansa made it to the first floor landing and was heading on her way to the servants’ stairs towards the kitchens. And still she encountered no one. She never realized how loud her footsteps echoed through those empty, cavernous halls.

            No noise drifted up from the kitchens as Sansa approached. Then entered, and still no one. She did a quick mental calculation of what day it was and what national holidays were in the summer. Perhaps there was one specifically for King’s Landing or the Southron counties? One that called for all persons, servants or masters or otherwise, to stay in bed all day.

            Sansa stood at the entrance to the kitchens, glancing at all the cupboards and storage and the equipment-

            The equipment! Surely the servants would be warming them up for the hefty assortment of pastries and eggs and meats required for breakfast, if not lunch. Or brunch – that was a Southron thing, taking a meal in the middle of the morning as a catch-all for foods. Or rather, as an excuse for sleeping in late.

            She approached the various stoves and counters; they were all freezing. But they weren’t spotless. Rather, half of them had food in the process of being prepared: raw meats flayed and cut, vegetables evenly diced, a pot of soup curdling. And then there were others that were plated, waiting to be served. Each dish was accompanied by their own entourage of flies and gnats, likely in a state of disbelief at their good fortune.

            As much as some of the foods looked appetizing, Sansa’s stomach turned. She hadn’t eaten much, and the smell – though mild – was starting to get to her. It was sweet and savory and rancid and sulfurous. A combination of every possible food in every state of fresh or not.

            It wasn’t the food, however. While being a fair amount, they would not have spoiled that quickly. Not in this colder-than-usual weather, Sansa mused.

            The sound of the tap running startled her.

            Sansa spun around, nearly sending a plate of kebob’ed meats to the floor. There was a servant girl, about Sansa’s age. She held a glass under the tap with shaky fingers while the other twitched on the handle. The girl hadn’t noticed Sansa – she was on the other side of the large room behind a series of cupboards and ranges. Above the sound of water, Sansa thought she heard the tell-tale sniffle of crying.

            Sansa watched the water flow from the tap into the shaking cup. She forgot how dry her throat was, how big her tongue felt in her mouth. And up up, up, the line on the glass rose, almost to the top, when Sansa found her voice.

            “Stop.”

            The girl jumped, dropping the glass into the sink. Its contents flew everywhere: on the counter, the floor, the girl’s exposed hands and arms. The tap pounded on the glass, on the aluminum, a constant thud breaking the heavy silence. She turned, facing Sansa with wide eyes flitting about the room as if just realizing how _wrong_ it was.

            “Who… Who are you?” the girl asked. Her voice was thin. Sansa wondered if she was as thirsty as she was. The girl scratched at her jaw, wiping lingering tears from red-rimmed eyes and snot from under her nose, before realizing her fingers were wet and wiped them on her pants.

            Sansa didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know the girl, and to the girl Sansa was but another pompous resident of the Keep. Sansa might have seen her before but couldn’t place her face.

            That voice, echoing over and over in Sansa’s head, grew louder like an incessant drum beat. It pumped through her brain to the tune of her own blood.

            “It’s in the water,” Sansa finally blurted out.

            The girl froze. Her fingers had been idly scratching at her jaw, digging deeper into her skin until it turned red. The tap behind her was still running.

            Overcome with a sudden realization, the girl stared at her fingers with wide, panicked eyes. Sansa saw the tips were red. The girl shook her head slowly, mumbling to herself. Her hands were shaking even more now, causing her whole body to thrum with nervous, panicked energy.

            She didn’t say anything before bolting from the room. Sansa heard a faint cry echo down the halls, fading away behind the pounding of the tap.

            Sansa hadn’t known what to expect. Perhaps it _was_ a joke, those words, a terrible joke. Was it a code, or a saying? Maybe from last-summer’s blockbuster horror, maybe from some school rumor. Hadn’t Sansa heard whispers of sightings of a terrible monster inhabiting Blackwater Bay? Of a long, spiked creature seen off in the distance, gleaming in the sun’s light.

            But something that large couldn’t possibly swim its way into a kitchen faucet.

            Sansa left it and her mind running, avoiding spilled dishes and utensils on the floor, as she made her way back through the Keep.

            One person – two, if she counted herself – in the entirety of the Red Keep. A building that had its own postal code (she heard a servant say to another). A massive building at the edge of the largest city in Westeros. And only _two_ people.

            She continued up until she was stepping across the halls towards the central entrance. The Red Keep branched off from here, towards each of the wings housing the hundreds of inhabitants, above the earth and snuggled within. It had been said that there were entire underground wings unexplored in decades due to people forgetting how to access them. Sansa hoped they were just sleeping quarters, and nothing worse.

            She was almost to the central entrance when she saw it. No – him.

            He was sprawled face-down at the exit of the hall, each limb pointing towards a different direction. His left arm was aimed at Sansa, though she thought elbows did not normally bend that way. He wore the plain clothes of the servants, and scattered beyond him was a tray laden with broken champagne glasses.

            Sansa approached, taking her steps cautiously. He might have been asleep, for all she knew, and it would be impolite to startle someone awake. Even if, upon closer inspection, Sansa was definitely sure elbows didn’t bend that far.

            His face was turned away from her so she hadn’t noticed the scarring. Mottled circles on his neck and hands, the skin seemingly burned off in patches. Skin that was bloody with edges tinged sickly green, inviting swarms of bugs into an even grander feast than the kitchens.

            And then she saw his face had suffered an even worse fate.

            Sansa finally threw up. The tell-tale sting of bile had been at the back of her throat since yesterday, but this… This was something not _normal_.

            She wiped her mouth clean on the edge of her blanket, lifting it from the floor as Sansa made wide steps clear of the dead man. As she passed over him, she remembered that unusual smell of _everything_ alive and dead, all at once. It lingered on his rotting corpse.

            It grew stronger as she pressed forward, avoiding contact with the many servants strewn about the floor amongst platters of scattered hors d’oeuvres and broken glassware. Most were faced down. But enough lied facing up, face Sansa with their flesh hanging off bone and cries of pain caught on their lips. There was also one servant lying down, a bundle of umbrellas in her arms. Sansa remembered how relieved the girl had looked when Sansa took hers yesterday. And now she was hideously dead.

            They all had it.

            Though she did her best to avoid looking (and stepping), Sansa saw the signs: sick green edges about skin that seemed to have just fallen off; repeated circles of varying sizes along exposed flesh that _burned_ its way to the muscle and bone; claw marks at faces and hair, red with blood, trying to stop a terrible itch. She was sure the blood and skin would have been buried under their fingernails had not the flesh of their hands fallen away too.

            That made Sansa clutch at her throat. Hadn’t she sipped some of that water on her way to her rooms yesterday? Hadn’t she gotten wayward drops on her hands when she dropped the glass? She couldn’t help but glance at her hand – it looked okay. But how was Sansa to know how fast this _thing_ devoured?

            She was making her way towards the inner courtyard through halls where the servants seemed to be running _from_. And as she continued onward, certain they had all been fleeing, the servants became mixed with regular people. Women, mostly, dressed in once-fine silks and jewelry dancing in the slick shine of fresh blood. It was harder it ignore them. Whilst the servants wore longer pants and shirts, these women were far more _exposed_ for their deaths. The bile tore at her throat as she vomited whatever remnants remained in her stomach.

            Her feet continued, slowly, calculating the location of their fall. The bodies were so thick agains the floor now. While she pressed forward, Sansa wondered if it was worth it to confirm her speculation:

            From the screaming that seemed to erupt as she was climbing to her sleep. From the sheep that stormed the beach, the city, the Keep.

            As Sansa approached the inner courtyard – whose doors were ajar because bodies were keeping them open – she thought about how successful the Sheep were in overthrowing the Lions.

            Sansa barely took a glance, a half-glance, at the amount of blood and flesh and gore that created a fine layer above the stone and grass. Birds and dogs were picking at the feast. And though she couldn’t tell from the distance, countless insects swarmed atop and through each body. Cersei practically invited every woman worth anything. Now they were worth millions to animals and bugs.

            Sansa threw up again.

            She couldn’t go on.

            She _had_ wanted to see, in a morbid curiosity, _who_ had been…affected. How many of the hundreds of people inhabiting the Red Keep had been unluckily invited to the gala, how many Sansa would recognize in name or in passing.

            Or, even worse, whether or not the Lions were officially overthrown.

            But Sansa couldn’t stomach it, evidenced by the fresh stain and smell mixing with those already present. There were so many of them, inside and out.

            And if the Red Keep was only a fraction of the city… Sansa didn’t want to think about the people – the families, friends, travelers – out enjoying that beautiful day before the rain…

            Sansa didn’t remember walking back to her rooms, but she arrived in a daze. Her head was pounding; her throat felt like it was closing in on itself, the bile worsening the thirst.

            She threw the blanket in a corner, afraid of it, afraid of what could be on it. And she did the same with her shoes, the coat, everything, until she stood naked, goosebumps covering every inch of her. She wanted to bathe, to scrub at her skin and her eyes and nose. To forget what she saw. To go back to before she walked downstairs, before she saw those blasted clouds.

            Before she came to King’s Landing.

            At that, she paused.

            Her family… Were they hit by the storm too? It rained far more often in the North than it did down here, but would the rain in the North have been _tainted_? And what was in it that did...that killed people so horribly?

            They’re alive, she told herself. They had to be. The Wolves were strong.

            She crept towards her bedroom and began searching for a change of clothes. It was still cold, and still mid-July.

            And as she flung each summer dress off its hanger and towards the void behind her, she wanted to scream. It never got _cold_ here, nothing compared to up North. Her family insisted she bring a set of proper winter clothes, just in case. But the Lions laughed, like they did at all Northern ideas and traditions. Back then Sansa agreed that there wouldn’t have been any time or weather suitable for Northern winter clothes. But now – what she’d give for a proper rain coat and boots.

            She got dressed as warmly and as dryly as she could. Sansa figured layering up would be her best option. It would take longer for the water to seep into her skin, and she could always shed off the outer layer before it did damage.

            Her shoes were her biggest concern. She brought a pair of knee-high boots – her favorite pair, worn at the toes and heel, and fashionable with anything. And while they made light of her layers of clothing, they weren’t very waterproof. Cute: yes. Safe against killer rain: not really.

            Need to be extra careful, she thought, grabbing the umbrella and checking that it worked. In the back of her mind someone chided her that opening the umbrella indoors was bad luck. Sansa wasn’t sure how much worse luck she could receive at this point.

            A final sweep of her rooms, and her eyes fell on the radio. Those four words were a mantra now, repeating over and over in her head as though she never turned the radio off. She wondered, as she flicked it back to life, if that man would be saying anything else now.

            “It’s in the water.”

            Sansa slapped the machine, almost upturning it. She wanted to cry, to scream, to laugh. It’s in the water – but _what_ is? And _why_?

            She didn’t bother turning it off before she descended the stairs, the words following her down, down, down.

            The words weren’t a joke. They were a warning.

            A little too late for that, she thought bitterly.

* * *

            There were so many bodies outside.

            Sansa couldn’t tell if the rising disgust in her stomach was from the sight or the growing smell. She never enjoyed the smell of King’s Landing – it was too crowded, for starters, leading to a rancid accumulation of sweat and body odor and urine and gods knew what else. With the addition of that endless sun, the wonderful ingredients were constantly cooking towards an often-overpowering stench that Sansa honestly wondered how people weren’t throwing up every block. They were used to it was her best guess. And if things hadn’t ended so catastrophically _bad_ , Sansa supposed she might have too. One day.

            She brought the collar of her outermost layer over her mouth and nose. It only helped mask the pungency a little. But it was more for the sense of peace knowing Sansa was not directly inhaling the scent. Inhaling death.

            Carefully her feet carried her down the winding road away from the Keep. There weren’t nearly as many bodies outside on her way down, but enough to given Sansa a reminder of what touching the water would do.

            And there was water on the asphalt, soaked into it, a midnight black. It pooling at the curbs and atop the lawns. She did her best to jump from the lighter patches to another. A game, she idly remembered, that her younger siblings would play out in the woods. They would nimbly jump from rock to rock, claiming that the earth beneath would kill them instantly. Bran never fell – he was just as skilled jumping rocks as he was at climbing trees. Rickon would follow along, trying to keep up. But his legs were too short, and he unceremoniously ‘died’ to the laughter of Arya and Bran. While they laughed, they also patched up his bruised and bloodied hands to keep knowledge of this pastime from their mother.

            Oh the things Catelyn Stark would skin her children alive had she known all the reckless things they did on the daily!

            Her mother and father and brothers and sister... Were they alive too? It rained far more often up North, even during the summer. Well, it rained more often anywhere else except perhaps Dorne. King’s Landing had an average of three to five days, someone once mentioned to Sansa when she complained about the heat.

            Day one of three or five, then.

            In some places on the road, the dry patches were too far, even for Bran. Sansa imagined the water had to actually _touch_ skin to do damage. Exhibits 1 through 436 were strewn along the road behind her. Sansa took in a deep breath, steadying her nerves, before sprinting towards the nearest patch. And then the next, taking a curving approach to avoid the man that so meticulously organized the hedges lining the road.

            Sansa was half-sure her boots were sturdy enough for simply walking on damp asphalt. But who honestly knew?

            She made it to the massive gates without once throwing up. And then Sansa saw the girl from the kitchens. She ran crying through the Keep and down the road towards the city. She almost made it, too, had she not slipped and split her skull on the spiked railing. Sansa noticed her jaw and cheeks were clawed into craters, her fingers as bloody as the asphalt beneath her.

            Sansa wondered if it hurt less, to die like that than from the rain. She tried not to think on it as she passed through the gates.

            The streets of the city proper were cobblestones, worn smooth after centuries of feet, horse hooves, wagon and carriage wheels, and finally automobiles. Textbooks-worth of the history of King’s Landing’s roads have been written, she was sure. And historians always prodded the stones for the endless stories they’ve witnessed. If stones could talk, would they agree that today was the worst day they’ve experienced, too?

            Sansa used to enjoy the cobblestones – given that the gaps between weren’t filled with urine, which was rare. They were a lovely contrast to the buildings that have grown within and between and on top of one another as human innovation grew. Such old roads running beside new modern construction of plain white boxes. Old versus new: an endless supply of experiences and stories, versus the budding creation of new ones.

            But today, Sansa was not feeling particularly enthralled by the stones. The worn, smooth surfaces were just _begging_ for Sansa to tread across. Taunting her to try, and in the process fall flat into a puddle of agonizing death.

            The short trek down from the Keep took what felt like an hour. Travelling into the heart of the city would take the rest of the day.

            Sansa didn’t know why she was trying, why she was holding out hope that _someone_ she knew was alive out there. Even if that someone was…not her first choice.

            What was that phrase again? Careful what you wish for. She never wanted harm to come to anyone, no matter how detestable or deceptive or down-right rude they were. Inconveniences, perhaps. Like waking up with such a killer hangover that they wouldn’t remember they were engaged for at least a week and leave their betrothed alone. Small things. Not…this.

            Even if Sansa was regretting her once-love of the cobblestones, she kept her eyes focused on them.

            Because if she hadn’t, if her eyes strayed towards the rest of reality, she wasn’t sure all the resolve in the world would let her feet keep going.

            There had been bodies everywhere in the Red Keep. There were infinitely more bodies in the city, and they continued to appear with every uncertain step she took. For a few minutes at a time, Sansa even forgot about them, thinking only of the rain and her footing. Right foot. Check for water and slippage. Left foot. Repeat.

            And then poor Foofy. That wasn’t its name, but rich old ladies gave their tiny dogs ridiculous names like those right? Like Foofy and Snowball and Snoopadoop. At least in movies. Poor Foofy was sniffing around his/her owner, that crotchety old lady that Joffrey had nearly collided with yesterday. If only Joffrey had run into her, the old lady would have had a more dignified death. Anything seemed more dignified than dying by this damnable rain, whether it be hit-and-run or impalement.

            Foofy didn’t understand why the lady wasn’t moving, nipping at her drenched clothes, pawing her splotched arm in a frantic wake-up call. Nothing Foofy did worked. But she wouldn’t awaken, Sansa wanted to call out. She almost did, staring as the dog continued. And then Foofy, it seemed, got tired of waiting and began nipping at the lady’s arm. The flesh fell into Foofy’s mouth like perfectly tender meat. Foofy didn’t seem to mind it was anything but.

            Sansa carefully – even more carefully – walked, away from that poor lady. Foofy might have been the cutest dog, with its fluffy white fur and teeny legs, but Sansa drew a line at dogs that _ate their owners_. Not to mention, as she got half a block away, that the fur was wet.

            Cuddling with Foofy would have resulted in death. Perhaps only a slightly less terrible way to go, the only worse scenario being death by inexplicable killer rain.

            So she continued towards the heart of the city.

            It was at least midday by the time Sansa reached the main road that ran in a lopsided circle about the city. Roads branched off the circle in either direction: towards and away from the center. At the heart of the city was the Sept of Baelor, a massive religious structure dedicated to the Seven, second in size only to the Keep itself. As time wore on, houses and stores built up around and around the Sept, circling the building into the ubiquitous city center. Newer buildings of soaring architecture were built between the cramped older ones, and it was a miracle anyone found their way within.

            Sansa regretted not knowing her way around King’s Landing. She had walked around the streets a few times, not as often as she would have liked thanks to the gods-awful weather. Sunlight did not reach most of downtown, but the cramped quarters kept in the heat even long after the sun set.

            She knew her way around _enough_ , she felt. She had been to Joffrey’s apartments a handful of times in her two weeks, yesterday included. Sansa was regretting not paying attention to the path Joffrey wound his way through. Still, she was sure she would be able to recognize the building, with its sleek metal-and-glass façade. Only, she had to find it first.

            What was most surprising was the silence. The silence of people, the silence of movement. Car alarms went off in these narrow one-way streets, echoing off the neighboring buildings into a symphony of machines. But they weren’t moving. There were people in them honking as they sped through as if saying ‘it’s your fault if you get hit’ (Sansa was rightly _appalled_ at how reckless the drivers were. But the native pedestrians were just as awful, crossing streets in defiant ‘hit me, I dare you’s). There were none of those, either. No people, no _alive_ people, bustling towards work, or towards the museums and Sept and beach. There weren’t vendors selling knock-off souvenirs, or people pushing carts of foods and desserts with a trail of delicious air cleansing the filth.

            There wasn’t _anything_ anymore.

            The screaming cars and the dead bodies were piled so high in some of the narrow streets that Sansa could not physically get through. She had to backtrack more than once, and on one occasion, arrived back at the same turned-over food cart that was currently being picked clean by a pack of dogs.

            She wanted to scream. She was rightfully lost, and the city was so stupidly _huge_.

            Thunder rumbled in the distance.

            Sansa froze. She hadn’t been paying attention to the sky, not with the buildings towering above her, blocking out the light. But there they were: heavy, dark rain clouds marching from behind the Red Keep. They already stormed the castle last night – today, it seemed they were checking for survivors. Making sure they were all _dead_.

            Sansa panicked.

            She hadn’t anticipated this, not more rain. Not in King’s-it-only-rains-three-to-five-days-a-year-Landing.

            Eighteen years she lived a gloomy, cold, wet, and snowy life. And two weeks without, she already forgot that stormclouds had a mind all their own.

            Sansa tried to run but her damned feet almost slipped. She was careful not to grab hold of a car to steady herself – beads of water lingered along the metal in eager anticipation of her living flesh.

            Her eyes whipped around the narrow street. She was halfway down the street, and she couldn’t see any doors. The only possible salvation was a single overhang, back near the toppled food cart. The dogs had grown full, or bored, and lumbered further into the heart of the city. Sansa envied them.

            Thunder rumbled again, and Sansa felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes. Her feet felt like lead, her hand clutching the umbrella’s handle tightly. Her throat began closing up as she sobbed, choking on the cries as she went, so _impossibly slowly_ , towards her only shred of hope.

            Sansa knew she was going to die, but her feet kept moving, trying to defy her brain. She wasn’t going to make it. And if she did, the awning was too small to do much of _anything_ other than prolong her death. She had the umbrella, but that was more useless.

            She should have stayed in the Red Keep. She was safe there, _dry_. She could have stolen all the blankets in the Keep, snuggled deep beneath their warmth as the rain pounded on the walls. She could have pretended for eternity that she was back home. Back someplace where she had a family that loved her and people who didn’t want to use her. And rain that _didn’t kill people_.

            She heard it. Pouring down streets behind her. A heavy downpour of _finality_. If the first rain hadn’t killed everyone, this one would. Sansa wondered if these buildings could even _handle_ the rain. A torrent collapsing roofs and cracking windows, ensuring that nothing was free from the sheep’s terrible wrath.

            Sansa felt the cold wind at her back as the rain approached, whipping strands of hair into her eyes. Her tears were falling down her jaw, her sobs rivaling the pounding water.

            She wasn’t going to make it.

            Her hands fumbled at the umbrella’s clasp, not able to work it free. He fingers trembled so hard to be of use at anything.

            Frustrated, Sansa threw the stupid umbrella towards that even stupider awning.

            Sansa Stark was going to die.

            She turned to face the rain.

            It was just at the street’s entrance. The clouds above cast the whole town in such a deep shade of grey and despair. Dogs ran away, past Sansa, ignoring her just like everything else.

            At least the rain paid her attention. She swore she heard it calling her name.

            She stopped sobbing, but the tears continued. How apt, she thought. Her tears were a precursor to the water that would flow over her, wash over her, and erase her entirely.

            The rain was calling for her.

            Raising her arms to embrace the water, Sansa Stark was ready to die.

            Something grabbed her, at the back of the neck. Her feet nearly gave way as Sansa was pulled back and back, away from the approaching rain. She wanted to yell, to scream that death was the only thing left and she wasn’t even allowed that.

            Her hands clawed at her collar, twisting her body around. There was something, _someone_ , there, hauling her by her clothes. They were yelling something Sansa couldn’t make out through the downpour.

            Something cleared in her mind: she wasn’t going to die, not today. Sansa detached their arm from her clothes and grabbed it. Their footing was far surer than hers, and she nearly took both of them down more than once.

            There was an open door, shaped to blend in with the wall’s pattern. It was several feet away. And then she was at it, through it, beyond into safety.

            The person slammed the door shut just before the rain pelted at the metal. It echoed in the dark hallway, drowning out both her ragged breathing and her racing thoughts.

            I’m not dead, her brain repeated, over and over. It repeated on the raindrops slamming into the building, on the wind howling at the unfairness of its stolen kill.

            I’m not dead.

            It didn’t take long for the rain-filled silence to break.

            “Did you touch the water?”

            It was a man’s voice, shaken and loud. The voice of the man that saved her. She could hardly make him out in the dim light of the hall, wasn’t entirely sure if she was facing him or not. But Sansa heard his feet, carefully tiptoeing around her frame until he was on her other side, away from the door. The light in the hall was still too far away to make out his features. Sansa could tell that he was about her height, with dark hair, wearing a long-sleeved shirt and pants. Aside from that, he was a complete mystery.

            “Did you touch it?” he repeated, urgently. It broke her out of her spell, but he didn’t recognize his voice.

            “N-no, I didn’t,” she stammered, suddenly freezing.

            Neither of them spoke. The sound of the rain between them intensified, knocking on the door in earnest request to enter and _end it_.

            Sansa had no desire to let the rain catch her, not anymore.

            “Come this way,” he said, turning and heading down the hall. He hadn’t looked back to see whether or not Sansa was following him, or whether the girl he just rescued contemplated heading out towards her death.

            She followed.

            There wasn’t much to observe in these back hallways. Service corridors, Sansa realized, though there were a few doors they passed by. It was very nondescript: the walls were masonry painted simple grey, the doors grey metal, and it seemed every other ceiling light was on. With them, the only other thing she discerned from her savior was his hair was definitely dark, short in relaxed curls. It was messy, as though run-through by fingers far too often in the past day. His clothes, though well-made, were just as rumpled.

            He didn’t say anything as he led her up a staircase and out into another hallway. This one was brighter, with carpeted floors and strips of red paint accenting the walls. There were eight doors on either side, all slightly ajar save for one.

            “In here,” he pointed towards the nearest door, turning to face her.

            He was older than she thought, but not so old that the wrinkles lining his face were permanently etched deep. Sansa noted the hair at his temples were peppered grey, fading into the rest that so dark brown it looked black. Had Sansa not known better, she would have thought they grey started this morning thanks to the rain.

            His face was…peculiar. It was as though he was trying desperately hard to appear unfazed, bored. His mouth was a flat line accented by a light moustache. However, his eyes betrayed that mask of uncaring. There was fear in those green eyes. Fear of the rain, no doubt. Fear of death. Fear of this new future.

            But there was hope, too. _Relief_. Of what, Sansa wasn’t sure. It was so faint that Sansa hadn’t been sure she read it at all.

            “What’s in there?” she asked, approaching slowly, still too far to peer inside. Her voice sounded so weak.

            His mouth tightened, as though forcing himself to keep quiet.

            As much as she was grateful for this man – saving her life was something big – she didn’t _know_ him. Who he was. How he managed to stay alive. What he wanted.

            Why he saved her.

            She was about to ask again when he relented. “A room to rest.” He stepped away a foot, two, lowering his arm. “I’ll bring some supplies.”

            Supplies for what, Sansa was going to ask. But he already turned and walked away, leaving Sansa to her choice: stay or leave.

            There wasn’t anywhere else to go with the rain pounding against the building. The only places she knew were Joffrey’s apartments, where she wasn’t sure he or anyone else was dead; or the Red Keep, where everyone she was sure was dead. Besides those, Sansa hadn’t a claim to anything else in King’s Landing.

            But she didn’t know him, this man, not in the slightest. He seemed kind enough in saving her, a total stranger. Only, he gave off a slight aura of being off-put by her. Her stupidity at not seeing the door; at giving up and embracing death; at being outside in the first place.

            Still, he saved her. Someone who didn’t care would have left her to her agonizing death, right?

            She hadn’t fully decided by the time he returned, startled at his approach. Had she not known better, she would have sworn his face _softened_ when he saw her still there and not on her way out.

            Sansa realized she must have been standing there for a while, given the amount of supplies he brought: a blanket, a bottle of juice (one of those large ones), and a bucket that rattled with other things inside.

            He didn’t say anything as he moved past her, avoiding her, and into the room, setting the things down just inside the door. Sansa followed, keeping half of her body poised in case he tried something.

            Sansa hadn’t expected an actual bedroom. It was small, and definitely not his by the presence of a small vanity with makeup strewn all over, and a chest of drawers that was open, frilly clothes half tucked away. The bed, however, was large, larger than anything Sansa had ever seen either at Winterfell or at the Red Keep. What anyone would need or do on a bed that large, she wasn’t sure.

            The man placed the folded-up blanket at the foot of the bed. He swiped the various makeup into the drawer – something slipped and crashed on the floor, but he paid it no mind.

            As he began to unpack what was in the bucket onto the vanity, Sansa blurted out: “Who’s room is this?” Or, _was_ this?

            He paused for half a second before saying “Ros,” and continuing his movements.

            That brought up more questions than it answered. Sansa was expecting something along the lines of: I don’t know someone who’s dead though and dead people don’t need beds or makeup or frilly clothes. What would someone need frilly clothes for anyway?

            But he _knew her_. Whoever Ros she was, dead or alive. A neighbor? A friend? Something else?

            “Get some rest,” he said, as though reading her relentless internal questioning. He headed for the door.

            “Wait,” she began, but he paid her no mind. He was careful to avoid her as he slipped an arm to grab at the door and begin shutting it closed. He hadn’t even seemed to mind that Sansa was in the way of it.

            But he had no intention of waiting for her to get out the way. She jumped inside, but not fast enough. The door collided with her foot and she hollered at the surge of pain.

            That seemed to unfazed him a little. The edges in his demeanor softened, almost into something Sansa thought to be _apologetic_.

            “What are you doing?” she got out through the sting of the pain.

            His lips went flat again, contemplating, debating. She saw the debate flash in his eyes as his hand softened on the handle. Sighing through his nose, he said: “This is for my safety. And yours,” he added as an afterthought. “You might have touched something.”

            You might have touched the killer water and brought the plague over my threshold, he meant to say.

            Sansa still had so many questions.

            “Get some rest.” And with that he brought the door closed with a soft _thud_.

            She stood there, blinking at the door. Sansa wanted to yell at him, to call out his name until he opened up and gave her all the answers she demanded.

            Then she realized she didn’t even know his name. “Who are you?” she called. Once again, louder. No response.

            Upset and confused, Sansa began for the door handle when she heard the _click_.

            No.

            Her fingers grabbed it, turning.

            It didn’t budge.

            She tried again, again, again.

            Her fist pounded on the door. Both fists. She didn’t know his name so she just yelled “Hey!”

            Nothing.

            She felt her heart pumping in her chest, felt the blood thrumming as it coursed through her veins.

            Her throat was getting sore and her fists were probably bruised. She went at it for so long the pain became a dull ache.

            Sansa collapsed against the door, forehead resting against it. He wasn’t going to come back, even if he heard her pounding and screaming. He had to have, right? There was nothing else to make noise except the rain.

            But the rain was gone too. There wasn’t a sound except her own hoarse breathing.

            Sansa thought it must have stopped by now, the rain. Either that, or these rooms were soundproofed. That seemed unlikely. But so too did the thought of the rain ending _already_ when the clouds were so dark, so heavy.

            Not like she would be able to find out.

            She tried the handle. Still locked.

            Sansa couldn’t sleep, so she sat on the floor, leaning against the bed, the blanket curled around her. She hadn’t even bothered to look through what else the man had brought. She remembered the juice, and the scratchy need of thirst growled in her stomach and along her throat. But she didn’t feel like it, didn’t have the energy.

            My safety and yours, he said. As much as she felt this sharp pain against him for locking her up (with a blanket and bucket for _exactly what she thought_ ) moments after saving her life, she had to see it from his point of view. He didn’t know her. He didn’t know where she had been, if she had done anything or touched anything or anyone. He saw how she embraced death, after all. He probably questioned how stupid she had been to touch something else before the rain was in front of her.

            Sansa’s mind lingered on that.

            She swore the rain had been calling her, luring her in in its siren-song of sweet finality. Once, twice it called for Sansa.

            Unless she was far more delusional than she realized, rain nor clouds couldn’t speak in human tongues. They spoke in that otherworldly language with animals and fellow forces of nature, but not with humans. And Sansa hoped it took more for her to reach that point of insanity.

            No. The longer Sansa thought on it, the more sure she became that it wasn’t the rain that called for her. It was the man who saved her.


	3. cloud on the horizon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I planned to get this up earlier, but then the weekend was hectic. Not to mention I decided to throw myself a curveball by changing the plot a bit, which was a bit of plot shuffling; but it definitely adds a lot of lovely drama.   
> Also another shout-out of love to everyone reading and liking this story!]

 

            Throughout that long, miserable evening – or was it night now? – Sansa wished that damned radio had been with her. To endure that silence on her own with nothing but the voice in her head was _madness_. It kept going on and on, whispering those four little words in her ears. ‘It’s in the water it’s in the water it’s in the water…’ If the radio was there, at least the voice would be _outside_ her head, and Sansa could manage to think.

            If the radio was there, then there would have been reassurance she hadn’t gone entirely mad.

            She managed to do it within this silence: to think. About the day, about what she saw and heard and experienced. About _almost dying_ and, more often than she realized, about the man that saved her.

            About the fact that he knew her name.

            They must have met, she thought, sometime during her short tenure as Joffrey’s fiancée. These past two weeks droned on as Sansa dealt with the heat and the anonymity of her being in such a large city. She met a few government officials outside of the Lannister’s family circle. Unofficial visits with handshakes and lewd glances across her frame. There had been plans, not yet concrete, to formally announce the betrothal to the world. To make certain of the gossip that traveled up and down the Kingsroad about the failed Northern succession. About the poor girl trapped as leverage to keep the North in line. Everyone knew of Sansa, but nobody _knew_ her; nobody in the South, at least.

            And yet, at least one other man did. Sansa racked her brain for any passing glimpses at people during her travels through the city’s streets. At any faces during those unofficial visits, her arm twined uncomfortably tightly with Joffrey’s whilst his mother’s smiles and laughs never reached her eyes. Men who knew she belonged to the future Lion, but didn’t see the problem in _looking_.

            All those men she met – their faces blurred into a misshapen countenance that was nothing like the man outside. Their eyes felt no shame in peering at the low-cut of her dress, at the height of the skirts. Sansa saw it in the tilt of their lips as they imagined what they would do to her had she been any other man’s betrothed. They disgusted Sansa as she smiled at laughed at their jokes, pretending to be the _loving_ and _doting_ wife they all expected women to be.

            Would any of them have bothered to save Sansa? To brave out into the oncoming storm, against the certain death only _yards_ away and growing closer. To prolong her own life at the expense of their own, not even knowing if she herself had been infected prior. What would those men have done? What would Joffrey have done?

            Saved their own skin first. And only if the probability of both of them not dying was one-hundred-percent would they have thought to save her. No, save her _body_. Use her and throw her away when they were done; if they ever finished.

            Sansa didn’t even know this man, but something about him made her feel that he wouldn’t abandon her in the same way those heartless politicians would have. It was in his eyes, in the furrows across his forehead. In the faint way that his muscles relaxed when he saw she was alive, and tensed when he wondered if she was not _okay_.

            At least Sansa hoped she wasn’t wrong.

            Sometime throughout the evening/night she dozed off. When Sansa awoke, her neck was crooked and needles pricked at her toes. The blanket had fallen, pooled about her like a protective ward against the evils of the world. It worked: her sleep wasn’t filled with the dead, like her reality had been.

            Stretching and recirculating the blood into her legs, Sansa wobbled to her feet and surveyed the room again. There hadn’t been much of use aside from the bed, which Sansa hadn’t even properly used. The chest of drawers failed to contain any _proper_ clothing, either in practicality or coverage. She was too embarrassed to check the other drawers once the pieces fell together: about the room, and what went on in it.

            Ros. That was the woman’s name. Sansa looked around again, at the walls and every shred of her personality she put into them. There wasn’t much to say who Ros was: what she liked or even what she looked like, with neither knickknacks nor photos present. Nothing actually personal, but just enough to make it appear that way. So this hadn’t been Ros’ own room, not in the sense that Sansa’s rooms in the Red Keep were hers. Or rather, the way that Sansa had gradually been transforming her rooms into _hers_.

            Sansa’s stomach gave out a long-overdue growl, so ravenous that it startled her in the disconcerting silence. She nearly slammed into the chest, terrified of the noise. And then Sansa couldn’t help but laugh: a short, terrible laugh despite the rawness in her throat. Sansa had almost forgotten what silly laughter sounded like.

            She padded towards the vanity and finally made sense of what the man brought. The bottle of juice was one of those large warehouse ones, about half-full and cranberry-flavored. Not Sansa’s favorite, but downed a third of it before her taste buds registered the bitterness. It was still cold, soothing her throat on the way down.

            Then there was the bucket. She upturned it over the vanity, careful not to drop it or any of its contents. Not like any of it was terribly valuable.

            A granola bar, a couple of those small packets of peanuts, and an apple wrapped in a dish towel. Great, Sansa thought half-bemused: at least he didn’t want me to starve to death while I’m locked up in my castle brushing my long locks of hair. Her fingers combed through them then, feeling the numerous knots and avoiding looking at herself in the vanity. She didn’t want to see the horrors written on her skin, in her eyes.

            She set the items aside by the juice bottle while she surveyed the other non-edible things.

            A bottle of hand sanitizer, a package of face tissues, and a thing of mouthwash; all travel-sized, and each already opened. Sansa wondered if this was a cruel joke at implying she _smelt_. She admitted she probably did, but he would have had to give her a lot more than that if she wanted to clean herself, her mind included. Sansa wasn’t sure if she could handle the mind cleansers, though.

            And then there was that bucket, too. Something like you’d use for a mop; Sansa saw the telltale leftover soapy ring near the top. Seemed like a lot of effort to go about fishing for that thing than a bag to carry all the items.

            It dawned on her as she was swigging the next third of the juice, drips of it staining her outer shirt a dark crimson. The growing pressure in her lower stomach, the realization that she hadn’t _gone_ since Joffrey’s party.

            “Oh gods no,” she muttered.

            She wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it, or throw the bucket at the man for _suggesting_ it.

            Now that her bladder had been reinvigorated with the juice, awakening after its short-lived hibernation, Sansa couldn’t ignore it. At least it would be a warm surprise when she threw the bucket at him.

            After washing up with the meager supplies, she carefully undid the dish cloth on the apple and took large bites. It tasted like heaven. Sansa continued eating as she opened the vanity drawer and fingered through the various makeup. It was scattered even without the man having tossed them in from the counter. Various tubes and bottles and blushes, none of which were the terribly expensive ones Cersei demanded Sansa wore now that she was royal-class. A bit of loose foundation swiped at her fingers.

            In the back, underneath a series of uncleaned brushes, Sansa found a worn photograph. It was a girl, younger than Sansa, perhaps Bran’s age. She seemed unsure what to do with her arms. One of those awkward dress-up photos that parents frame and hang everywhere, with their children dressed in their Sept’s best. The smile on the girl was genuine, though. She was staring away from the camera, utter delight on her face, soft curls falling over chubby, flushed cheeks. The edges of the photo were worn, one corner torn.

            Sansa stuffed the photo back where she found it, feeling almost guilty about looking at it. It was too modern to be Ros herself. Her daughter, then; or her niece. But the photo, that little girl with the rosy cheeks and floppy hair – Sansa figured she had to be the reason for Ros to keep on going, to keep working.

            Sansa sat at the edge of the bed, fingering the apple in her hand. She was almost done with it, but lost her appetite. Her eyes fell on a crack running nearly floor to wall. She felt herself drift away from her body, closing herself off inside her mind. She sat there, on the bed and in her head, thinking.

            Ros had a reason to work someplace like this. Sansa wondered if she was still alive, both Ros and the girl. If they each kept one eye open and one towards the sky, in hopeful anticipation of seeing each other again. In embracing one another. In surviving whatever hell this was. The need, the hope – no matter how unlikely – to keep on going.

            Sansa’s family was her reason to keep going, too. She knew they were alive; they _had_ to be. Wolves were hardy, strong. They hadn’t let Dragons tear them down, nor Lions. No sort of creature and no amount of rain could drown out the wild nature of Wolves.

            She would do it, she decided. To travel North, across those endless, winding miles, back to Winterfell. To see her parents smiling at one another, embracing each other again. To see her brothers and her sister, playing about the castle and joking like when they were kids.

            To see home. To _be_ home again.

            There was a knock at the door, so faint Sansa almost didn’t hear it. Her mind came back to her body so abruptly she felt dizzy.

            _Click_ went the lock. Slowly the door crept open, silent as it went.

            The sound of rain erupted in her ears again. She had forgotten about it – about the water and the bodies and the servant girl and Foofy. About how _stupidly_ close she had been to touching it. And now, with the silence shattered and light pouring in from the hall, Sansa was forcibly removed back into the terrible reality she wanted so desperately to escape.

            He stood there, still wearing the same clothes as she last saw him. His hair was more rumpled, though, and the shadows under his eyes seemed more permanent.

            She stared at him, and he her. It was silent except for the rain; it wouldn’t rest until Sansa finally came back to it, she thought.

            “You’re not dead,” was how he broke the silence.

            Sansa was sure there were _infinitely_ better ways to break silences than that. Silences that were practically forced, after locking the other party away with a gods-damn bucket to pee in. It sat by her feet - she could still throw it.

            “Neither are you,” Sansa replied.

            She thought she saw the edge of his mouth lift.

            “I had to make sure you weren’t infected,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Given how you were so _ready_ to embrace death like an old lover, it seemed the safe thing to do.”

            Sansa rotated the apple core about her fingers, digging into its soft flesh with fingernails. She picked pieces out to fall into the unknown. “Why didn’t you? Let me die, that is.”

            His eyes glanced away for half a second. As he pushed himself off the doorframe, he said, “You still can. I’m sure you remember the way out.”

            And he left. Sansa hadn’t expected the abruptness of it, of him. She felt her feet move before her mind told them to, but they caught on the blanket coiled on the floor like a snake. It tightened at the intrusion. The apple flew who knew where as she managed, barely, to grab hold of the door before slamming her head straight into its edge. Sansa cursed her clumsiness, at the blanket, kicking at it as she fumbled out of the room.

            “What’s your name?” she feebly called out, trying to catch up.

            Her legs still felt prickly, and her eyes had difficulty adjusting to the sharp brightness of the hall. She had not even realized how dim Ros’ room was, nor how peaceful the silence had been. No matter how long Sansa had been kept there – a few hours had been her guess – the rain hadn’t let up. It was waiting for Sansa. After the taste of her skin on its cold fingers, the rain would not stop until it finally embraced her once-willing form. Sansa shivered at the memory.

            Her eyes flitted at both ends of the hall, not knowing in which direction he disappeared. Sansa vaguely remembered entering from the left; there was that service door that she and the man came in from. It was as camouflaged as the one on the exterior – she wondered if there was any other point to that than keeping with the aesthetic.

            So Sansa gambled and went right. She couldn’t hear anything aside from the rain as she walked, past the other doors lining the halls. Each was ajar and dim inside. A brief glance provided nothing outwardly _remarkable_ about any of them, aside from the plain similarity of walls and furniture. Two rooms hadn’t a bed, and Sansa could only guess at how people would make proper use without one.

            The door that was closed was the last on the left. There was a faint smell, something spicy and sweet, but she wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the building. She only gave it a weak push at the handle as she strode passed – nothing. Sansa thought on how Arya learned how to pick locks and proceeded to show the rest of her siblings the method. They thought, with her fondness of needlework, Sansa would figure out this new form of needlework the quickest. She tried to get the hand of it, and while testing out her first foray instead got caught by a housekeeper that so kindly _forgot_ what they saw. She never tried again.

            This end of the hall had a small landing with restrooms and a staircase, and up Sansa climbed. The next level was an open storage with smaller rooms, likely locked for the more valuable goods traded about. How _valuable_ depended on the locks – some had three or four, for rooms smaller than her closet back at the Red Keep. She had to weave her way through the various stacked boxes and cabinets – thin films of dust collecting on some – to reach the other end where an open door provided yet another landing. There was a service elevator beside it as well, but that required a key she didn’t have. As Sansa climbed the stairs, she tried to remember what the building looked like from the outside, and how many stories it had. Nothing came to mind. Nothing except for the dim hallway and the open door and the strong grasp of his hand on her arm.

            The door at the top of the stairs had three locks, which Sansa knew was both excessive and meant that something important (or highly illegal) was cooped inside. To her luck and astonishment, it opened.

            Sansa immediately knew where she was. Not _precisely_ – she had never been here, nor been in any sort of establishment, regardless of how often she knew Joffrey went. Or, used to.

            The rooms covered the entirety of the floor, she assumed. She currently stood in an office, with plush carpet and leather guest chairs facing a large oak desk and an even nicer leather chair. There was little decoration – no photos or personal knickknacks, not even the _illusion_ of personality. Everything was orderly and minimal, and had its place.

            Perhaps the one thing that didn’t was a small desk off to the side with its own high-backed chair. The chair was pushed out at an awkward angle, and atop the desk’s polished surface was a radio. Far newer than the one in Sansa’s rooms back at the Keep. Sansa’s fingers itched to flick it to life and see if the voice kept repeating its mantra. To check if the voice wasn’t a figment of her imagination. But she didn’t.

            Bookshelves lined two of the walls, a few choice statues and plants interspersed with the tomes: business ledgers and books on policy, philosophy, and history. The third wall provided a four-story view of King’s Landing.

            She approached it, idly grazing fingers over the frozen surface. The hair on her arms, the back of her neck, rose at the chill. Sansa supposed he was lucky that the building facing the window was a story shorter and hadn’t blocked the view. The street below was swathed in darkness. But looking out across the buildings, she made out through the dark sky and pouring rain, a smattering brush-stroke of crimson. The Red Keep. It looked so far away; so distant and empty and dismal. It looked _dying_. There it stood, at the highest point in the city, overlooking the buildings and the citizens and the Bay beyond – and it could do nothing as this storm pummeled everything alive and not. Sansa hoped that this building’s flesh was sturdy, and backed away from the window.

            There was another door, behind his chair and set between bookcases. Sansa wasn’t sure how brave she was – to check if he was there, to invade even further into his life. But as she stared at the door, listening the rain tap-tap-tap forcefully against the glass, she decided against pressing her luck. Men, she found out, weren’t keen to people invading their personal space. She had enough bruises to prove it.

            As she made her way downstairs, Sansa caught herself checking around corners and perking her ears to anything unusual. She hadn’t bothered to be careful on her way up, and she hadn’t figured out why she bothered now. The fact that she was _invading_ his personal life, and that she would prefer not to be caught.

            Still no sight of the man, as she made it further down, that Sansa had half a mind to think she _made him up_. Wouldn’t that have been apt, though? To conjure up a savior to pull her from her recklessness and all this death. Someone to make certain her body didn’t succumb to that terrible plague thousands others already had. Her skin itched at the memory, but she held back. Whenever she idly scratched at herself she had to check her fingernails; making sure that her skin wasn’t peeling apart, too. That there wasn’t blood on her.

            She thought idly why, if her mind did create someone to save her, it hadn’t been the white knight upon a fiery stead her dreams had been so filled with as a child.

            And then she thought about her first white knight, and how _wonderfully_ gallant he proved to be.

            Sansa was back at Ros’ room, passing it, continuing towards the other side where yet _another_ staircase awaited her. At least Sansa had no fear of growing unfit. Down she went, skimming her fingers along the wall.

            While Sansa had never been in an establishment specifically catered towards men, she had once visited a nightclub with Joffrey and his friends during one of her first nights here. It was to celebrate the officiating of their betrothal to one another. To make public the Northern Wolf with fiery hair. And whose claim to herself – should her father or any other wayward, _backwards_ savages of the North sniff at the idea of rebellion again – be forfeited to any and all persons willing to _experience_ how the North differed in its delicacies. Joffrey made loud announcement of that, before and after downing shot after shot.

            She felt her skin crawl as she finished the last of the stairs. Her eyes roamed about the club, terrified that Joffrey and his disgusting friends and false-acquaintances would emerge from the corner or slam open the front door. They would accuse her of bringing this hellish rain. Of performing Northern witchcraft to break her engagement, or even to start a war within the capital. Any sort of excuse would work, no matter how weak. Because she would be – weak, against them, even against _just_ Joffrey, as the bruises littering her skin would attest to. She shivered. Sansa’s fingers had been absentmindedly scratching at the back of her head before she pulled them away.

            There were mirrors along the upper-half of the walls, with dark upholstery and floor tiles. She gazed up and up at the seemingly-endless ceiling, only to see herself staring back down at her from so far away. There were small lights embedded within and between the mirrors, twinkling slowly. The night sky had fallen into this nightclub. This sky, thankfully, was clear of clouds.

            He was sitting with his back-facing her at the bar, one leg idly tapping at the footrest of the stool next to his. He was sipping at a dark drink, the clink of ice just perceptible above the background rain. She had almost forgotten about it, its noise dulling into a constant, heavy patter.

            She saw his face in the mirror behind the bar. He hadn’t been looking at her – at least, not when she finally noticed him. His fingers lazily rotated the glass, ice swirling the drink. Instead, he was gazing up, at the endless sky, the hair at the back of his neck brushing at the rumpled collar of his shirt. She wondered if he was also thinking about the nights that weren’t filled with clouds; when death didn’t hang just outside the front door.

            Sansa hadn’t realized she had stood there, staring, until his gaze followed the mirrors from the ceiling and down the walls. His eyes found hers, and he raised his glass in invitation, taking another sip of the liquor.

            She was the first to glance away, awkwardly surveying her surroundings again, as though considering his offer. There was the front door, on the other side of the stairs and just as far, with darkened windows. Even through the dark glass she thought she could see the rain just outside, feel its cold tendrils seeping underneath and winding about her limbs. Beckoning her back with its promise of finality. She complied to it, shivering, but nothing more.

            There weren’t too many obstacles in her way should she need to make her escape. The only variable was whether or not he left the doors open or not.

            Finished with the once-over (or rather second-over), Sansa made her way towards the bar, flitting her eyes over the colored glass bottles and jars filled with alcohol she had never even heard of. There was a series of backlighting to those shelves, making each bottle glow with an ethereal halo.

            Instead of taking a seat she went behind the counter, continuing to invest her interest in the assortment. Her fingertips grazed the bottles closest to her, so lightly, ears straining to pick up on the faint _clink_ her nails made. She wondered, too, how much they cost, and how terrible it would be to accidentally knock any over.

            “Which is your poison?”

            She wished he had used any other word. Poison – so often imagined as a sickly green, both bright and dark, that she always imagined the color was for show. Now she could picture it, the color of poison. It edged the holes seared in flesh as the water made its feast towards bone. It brought hands to skin, itching furiously until it came apart underneath fingernails, before finally falling away from curdle with the blood pooling about the body. It was so many deaths and so many questions.

            Sansa felt the sting of cranberries and acid, but swallowed it back.

            “Anything but water at this point,” she replied, finally turning away from the colors into the endless blackness.

            She caught the corner of his lips curling upwards before falling behind the distortion of the glass. The deep-amber of the liquid swirled as the ice fell and -

            “Aren’t you afraid of the ice?” she asked, practically blurted out. The itch on her arms came into focus. He had to have known about the rain if he bothered to save her yesterday – or was it earlier today? He rain headfirst into the oncoming storm to pull her out of it, and here he was drinking with ice, taunting Death.

            He turned his head half-towards the mirrored wall, but his eyes were locked on her face. As he lowered the glass, Sansa saw a look of amusement cross his mouth, though his eyes remained clear, calculating. “And why should I be?”

            Was he playing a fool, or was this man actually one? He knew, he _had_ to know. Anyone still alive by now had to be aware of the consequences of touching the water. It was in the water, the voice echoed in her head.

            “And what would that be?”

            Sansa stared in confusion until she realized she said her thought aloud. He was still smirking, _at her_ and her naiveté, bringing the glass up to touch his lips. He kept it there, barely in contact, waiting for her brilliant response and deciding then whether he’d need to down it and fill another glass.

            She had been about to reply when the word caught in her throat. _It_ was in the water; _death_ was in the water.

            But what else was it? Plenty of rain back North proved that rain did not come prepackaged with something that ate at human flesh. What was the statistic again? Three to five days of rain a year in these Southron counties. Perhaps here, rain was a roulette of regular water versus infected water. A gamble against Mother Nature herself to live and rule and do as one pleases. Sansa racked her brain at the history lessons about death-infused water falling from the sky. She felt there had been _something_ , some story of the gods that had shown their anger in cleansing the world of the depravity and wickedness of man.

            All those stories escaped her, the details and the outcome. This wasn’t a story; this was her present, and her future.

            She came back to the bar, vision filling again with this man who continued to stare at her in a mixture of amusement and disbelief. The glass was still at his lips. He couldn’t have known anything more than she did. He had to have been deprived of answers like her.

            “I don’t know,” Sansa finally replied. “But it’s nothing good, or kind.”

            He laughed through his nose, tipping his head to down the rest of his drink. Sansa stared at the way his throat bobbed as the liquor fell.

            “No, it certainly isn’t,” he agreed, setting the glass on the counter without moving to refill it. He didn’t reek of alcohol, but Sansa was sure this was far from his first glass.

            Sansa leaned against the counter, fingering one of the stray napkins. They were black, too, with raised edges and a logo etched in silver. A bird of some sort. She spun the napkin in lazy circles. “What is it, then? What’s in the water?”

            As she looked up, Sansa noticed he had been focused on her hand and the napkin, on the lazy motion of her fingers. He was still looking when he answered, “Who can say? We can only hope it ends before we starve to death in here.”

            “And where, exactly, is _here_.” She glanced at the bird twirling under her.

            The man leaned back, one hand on the counter while the other threaded fingers through his hair. She wondered how many times he’d done that since the rain began. That, and how many drinks.

            “King’s Landing,” he answered, smiling at his own joke, laughing silently with his self in the ceiling. Sansa wondered just how many drinks he’d had.

            He brought his gaze back down to earth, waving a hand as he spoke. “A club, if you’ve not noticed. Plenty of booze to last through the apocalypse, at least.”

            “Might be just enough,” she replied, glancing back at the endless array of bottles.

            “Might be,” he answered, the corner of his mouth curling again.

            “And,” Sansa began, flashing the napkin between them. “Does _this_ have anything to do with the _name_?”

            His gaze fell from her to the napkin. He reached for it, fingers brushing against hers as he kept them there, inspecting it as if he’d never seen a napkin before in his life. His thumb circled the bird in the corner. He didn’t answer for a few moments, as though entranced by the silver sigil. All the while she felt the small heat of his fingers barely touching hers, hardly even there at all. “Haven’t you gone birdwatching up North? That’s the sort of entertaining thing they do, isn’t it?”

            Neither of their hands move, nor did their eyes. She stared into them, into the mixture of grey and green, and wondered the name of it. If there was one so precise for the mixture and the look in them. When she finally processed his words and the _stab_ at her heritage, she let go of the napkin, mock-wounded.

            “Is that what we are to you Southron folk? Boring bird-watchers that dabble in the lost magics?” She pretended to think about all the birds she supposed-watched, and replied “A pigeon seems most likely.” Sansa wondered where these words came from, where and when the courage of retort arrived. She hardly touched a drink, and she hardly ever spoke against anyone should she _displease_ them. There was something about him that made her tongue loosen even without alcohol. That, or the looming threat of death hanging just outside the walls.

            He seemed to enjoy it, though. The fire in her words, the company of someone to talk to despite the thousands lying out in the streets with no more words on their lips. But here, now: they were alive.

            “Appalling bird-watcher, you are. Perhaps you’d fare better in those lost magics?” His fingers placed the napkin on the counter, the bird facing towards her. He tapped on it, then gestured to the room. “May I introduce you to The Mockingbird.”

            “It’s beautiful,” she said. She wasn’t sure how else to describe the room, the supposed-vastness of it. The ceiling with its view into the endlessness of space.

            He nodded in agreement and thanks. Sansa surveyed the room again. It was so empty, so quiet and cold. It must have been packed every night, bodies touching, heat weaving through and filling the space like the liquor in their glasses. Music playing; people dancing, enjoying themselves to the company of others here or _above_.

            This must have been just as disconcerting for him as it was her. Based on the size of this floor, and the luxury in his own rooms upstairs, he had to have been accustomed to a certain constant of money flowing into his pockets. Wealth in paper and in people, known amongst those that needed _the best_. Sansa never would have come in here of her own accord, and Joffrey probably would have been barred – especially with his penchant for overindulging, in booze and in women – were it not for his status of future Prime Minister. He might have taken her here, one day. Only to flaunt his inherited wealth and power.

            _If_ he was still alive, how was all the inherited power keeping him from death?

            She finally remembered her long-forgotten question: “So, this place has a fitting name. I’m sure you’ve one too.”

            He looked behind her for a moment, at the bottles or at himself in the mirrors. A deflection, debating whether or not to answer. Sansa wasn’t sure if it was _stepping any lines_ , if there was a new unspoken apocalypse rule of keeping knowledge to yourself.

            She stared at him, at the way the light cast heavy shadows over his face. At the way the years were plastered in the light wrinkles and the edged grey overtaking the sides of his hair. Dark circles framed those grey-green eyes, and Sansa could only imagine what shares of horrors he had witnessed. Not just tonight, but in his so many more years than she had.

            And how all of those led to him being here, saving her.

            “You can call me Petyr,” he finally said, standing up and stretching his legs. The mirth of all their joking seemed to have vanished from his face. It was even absent as he added, “Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got to find a bucket. One too many drinks, and all.”

            She watched him climb the stairs without a farewell, and then it was just her again. Her and the rain.

            _Petyr._ That bit of knowledge, so small and seemingly insignificant… It dissolved the tension that had been coiling in her legs, the flags telling her to run. The voice that whispered _It was in the water_ sometimes also whispered _Don’t trust him_. She didn’t, couldn’t; not after trusting the Lions, and how well that worked for her. But just knowing his name – and even their brief quipping – was doing the least to make the voice whisper louder, to make it scream. It faded away while the rain continued to pound.

            Sansa rounded the counter, grazing her fingers across the smooth surface. She wanted to have a look around, wanted to see what so many people crowded and pressing would never see. An empty nightclub was an unusual occurrence in the heart of King’s Landing. Sansa thought about the Sept being the literal heart, and wondered how many blocks away it had to be. She wasn’t sure. But so many men and women flocked to the heart in the morning to have their conscious cleared, only to return come night to places like this – or worse – and begin the cycle again. The stories these mirrors have reflected back onto their patrons. Such wonderful, fantastical tales and histories all their own.

            She approached the far wall, gazing into the mirror. Sansa hadn’t seen her own face in well over a day, but the horrors were plastered all over. The sunk eyes, darkness clouding the skin beneath. Her mascara from Joffrey’s party was smudged everywhere, her once-blood-red lips almost as pale as her skin. Even her hair – her mother’s hair, red and curled like flowing, molten magma – had lost its shine, its form. It poked out every which way, wild strands once framing her cheeks sticking out against them. Even her clothes meant to keep her safe blotted her figure and seemed so unusual on her own body.

            This would be herself for the foreseeable future, Sansa realized. No water meant no showers, for one. And the rest of her life was in shambles. Terrified eyes that have already witnessed so much death and pain. And they would see countless more as she wound her long way up North, once the rain cleared. If it ever did.

            Her feet weaved their way through the empty tables, over the dance floor. Across the quiet room, the walls picked up her footsteps and echoed them back among the rain.

            She had completed the circuit of the floor and had been on her way back to the bar for a drink of something. She wasn’t a fan of hard alcohol – not after what she’d seen it do to people and their inhibitions – but perhaps Petyr knew how to make something that tasted just as good as it felt to forget all those dead people. Just for a little while.

            Her rambling thoughts were cut through as the white sheet caught her attention. It was just at the corner of her eye, almost forgettable in the dim light. In the far back of the room by the service doors, hardly there at all. But now that it was there, poking at her vision, it was as unforgettable as the people outside.

            It was hidden by the neighboring booth, in shadow of being in the corner and out of mind. A plain white sheet with old stains, wrinkled, laid out atop. Sansa had seen enough dead bodies sprawled out in the past twenty-four hours to recognize one, even if it had been _clumsily_ covered.

            Her hands were already at the edges, pulling it off.

            Sansa had been _relieved_.

            That was the first emotion that crossed her mind. She had been half-expecting to see Ros underneath, skin peeling away and clawed about her beautiful face and wrists. To imagine the grief in the young girl in the photograph at never seeing her mother/aunt again. Or worse – waiting for Ros’ return, patiently expecting the door to open and for a hopeful, teary embrace. Waiting and waiting and waiting.

            Instead, it was a man, taller than her, wearing heavy clothes and boots. He must have been a traveler, from somewhere in the North judging by the lack of decoration to his clothing. His face was blank, pale – he’d been dead for some time.

            What then surprised her was the amount of flesh to him. It was still there, all of it. No telltale bleeding, no ripping at his skin or the pockmarks of rain tearing through.

            He hadn’t died of the water.

            And yet here he was, dead. Long dead. Lying away at the back of a club, of the man that saved her. Hidden from view and from mind.

            She turned to him, letting the sheet fall from her fingers. They were trembling, cold. She wanted to scratch at her wrists but Sansa wasn’t sure she could move her hands.

            Sansa wondered if Petyr either forgot about this man, forgot to hide him better or dispose of the body. Or if Petyr already had plans to do the same with her.

            Sansa’s legs moved of their own accord. The voice in her head was screaming, blaring: Don’t trust him don’t trust him don’t trust him.

            She nearly collided with a table on her way towards the front door. The room grew colder as she moved, further from the _proof_ that her brain was yelling about.

            Her arms slammed into the front door. It opened.

            Wind blared at her, pushing against the door, urging her to go back inside. It was then that she realized how _stupid_ her escape had been.

            Ten feet away the rain poured, pooling in the streets. There were bodies there, littered, their skin all but completely washed from their bones. One of the bodies was smaller than the others, so much smaller. But just as dead.

            Sansa’s body froze. The cold stung, stopping the adrenaline pumping in her blood.

            The entrance to the club was set into the building by about twenty feet. A way to remove itself from the filth and noise of the city.

            She was only twenty feet from certain death.

            She was only ten feet from certain death yesterday.

            There weren’t any hands on her collar today, on her wrist, guiding her away. No voice screaming her name to get back, to get to safety.

            The wind was the only sound. There weren’t even any screams any more.

            Sansa turned her head to look inside. Off in the distance, the Sansa in the mirror stared back at her.

            Don’t trust him, the voice continued to whisper underneath the din of crashing water.

            Petyr – a man she knew nothing about save his name. A man who, at this very moment, was probably preparing for her own death under the guise of using the bathroom.

            The man under the sheet hadn’t died painfully – she wasn’t even sure _what_ he died of. But that would be her, her own white sheet protecting her body long enough for the next victim to fall into this trap. A false sense of safety and belonging.

            Sansa’s gaze flitted between herself in the mirror and the rain outside. It was starting to let up, she thought. But would it be soon enough?

            The itch at her wrists came back as the voice in her head continued to warn, to scream. At least fate was letting Sansa decide how she wanted to die.

            It was either Petyr or the rain.


	4. never rains but pours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This chapter is in Petyr's POV, brining in some new intrigue and plenty of questions.  
> To be honest, this story is turning out a lot darker than I planned, but it's still got a lot of drama to come!  
> Once again: thanks to all of you for your reading and love!!]

 

            Petyr Baelish was a man that, according to him, _thrived_ on change. On the destruction of once-made plans and their rearrangement into an end that was far _better_ than any combination of the firsts. Competitors and politicians and all sorts of big-wigs would describe him as relentless, if only they had known Petyr was behind every inconvenient downfall that plagued them. Every leak of secrets; every removal of one man from office; every fall and rise. Almost everything stemmed back through an intricate web to the wicked mind of one Petyr Baelish. Had even a _fraction_ of the men and women in King’s Landing – not even including all of Westeros – knew of the machinations he had in motion, in the game so intricately laid out within his mind with separate measures and countermeasures… Well, Petyr would have been a dead man a long, _long_ time ago.

            Here he breathed.

            But this new _development_ that arose across the sky made things unnecessarily complex. Petyr wiped all pieces from his board and began again. And again.

            Things were very much not going towards his tens of carefully laid plans, plans that wound through one another and crossed into territory even Petyr doubted would be necessary. So many _what if_ s laid unspoken on tongues and in minds. So many that Petyr oftentimes had to utilize other alphabets in lists of Plans and Subplans. So many possibilities and considerations, Petyr had always felt – regardless of what occurred – he would be prepared with the right pieces in power, with the right secrets at his beck and call.

            This, he had to frustratingly admit, was not a plan Petyr had given much consideration in going _awry_. In going one-hundred absolute percent fucking _wrong_.

            His hand slammed against the window. The chill seeped through and into his skin, winding its way up his arm to cool the brain that was ablaze in the wrongness of the world. The last twenty-four hours had been a nightmare of a mess, to put it lightly. Petyr’s mind had been in overdrive, working through the changes as they began from that morning. One event to another and another – piling up and breaking through the neatly-arranged plans. He thought he could salvage them, salvage _something_ of those careful years conceiving.

            They had all gone to utter shit when the rain broke out.

            That rain filled with _death_ , carrying the screams of thousands and echoing them throughout this blasted prison.

            Petyr berated himself for as long as the screams tore through the night. He then berated himself for not having the sense to _leave_ while the rain was subdued on its first feast.

            Yet if he had left, Petyr wouldn’t have been here, staring out this same window. Looking down, down, down through the grey and the wet. He swore he could still see that particular shade of red down there, one that was less poisoned and less _dead_.

            There it had been. The other situation in this entire fuck-up day of situations that - though it once had its merit in possibility, deep in the recesses of his game board - was so far out of reach it had been almost as impossible as the rain. Petyr had to blink, again, to make sure it wasn’t a trick of the mind.

            Once the rain happened, he should’ve known anything was possible now.

            Sansa Stark.

            Three stories below him. In unmarred flesh and _alive_.

            Petyr’s body acted of its own accord. He honestly hadn’t recalled the actions, the warnings blaring in his head and out his lips. Until his hand was pulling her away. Until they were out of the deathly clutches of the rain and the wind. Until he stared at her in that dim light with the water pounding against the door to be let in. Then he realized how _stupid_ he was. Petyr could berate Sansa for being stupid for standing, for _waiting_ for the water to take her. But he had proved to be just as foolish for saving her.

            The pounding rain brought him out of his mind, back into reality. It was starting to lessen. The sun existed out there, somewhere, behind the clouds. It usually began peaking from behind the Red Keep, setting it alight as dawn broke. Setting it into a fiery blaze as a daily reminder of the Dragons that once ruled from that terrible seat.

            Instead, the Keep and King’s Landing was swathed in greys and – winding through the city streets – in reds.

            To thrive off of change meant that some things at least stayed the same. This world, this rain – it was hardly change but a complete upheaval of the ways of the world.

            There was a story about this, wasn’t there? Someone had tried to teach Petyr those – the gods and their benevolence and their misdeeds. A story of a rain cleansing the world of its horrors… Something like that.

            If that were the case, Petyr surely would have been one of the first to be _cleansed_.

            No, this was something else. Someone else.

            Taking a deep breath of air, Petyr continued to stare out into the city, at nothing in particular. His fingers traced the movement of the rain falling helpless against the window. If this was punishment for all of the terrible acts and underhanded dealings he performed in his tenure at King’s Landing, it surely was fitting for the extent of his work. Not to mention the work he had been saving, so close to fruition. Days away from unfolding. Now too many of those pieces were wasting away here, either dead or out of use.

            He exhaled, slowly, watching the glass fog before him. Petyr stepped away. One could only pretend to take a piss for so long.

            He hadn’t failed to notice the door had been left slightly ajar when he entered. Unless the dead started to walk like in those ridiculous television programs, Petyr knew that a certain someone was snooping where she ought not to be. At least she managed to replace whatever she looked at, if she had.

            Whatever she found in his office would be the _least_ of Petyr’s deeds. Plenty of incriminating evidence, if one knew where to look and how to decrypt his own codes. He was sure Sansa was hardly that clever.

            Petyr made his way down, through the storage and kitchens, and down further towards the second floor rooms. He had been so entranced in his thoughts – in remaking and salvaging whatever he thought to be left of that most recent plan – that when he turned into the hallway he nearly collided into her.

            She was too preoccupied to notice him either, it seemed.

            Sansa stumbled backwards, face flushing and wild as her hair. Her fingers dropped two small objects in lieu for something more practical. The glint off it made Petyr take his own step back.

            As she stood there, slightly crouched and poised, hair braided back with flying wisps, and a _knife_ clutched in trembling hands – Petyr couldn’t help but think of those Northern stories of wilding humans, living north of an impossible wall. A fantasy, a bed-time story as old as those gods cleansing the earth. Sansa’s posture and face intended on seriousness, on intimidation. He had to admit the smudged mascara added to the effect of _savagery_. But Petyr saw through it in the uncertain grasp of her fingers, the wavering look in her eyes.

            She was easily a hundred times more terrified of him than he of her. And both of them knew it.

            The rain was pounding softer against the walls, its echo the only sound within the hall.

            Petyr’s gaze flickered down to the discarded items. Hair pins. Two, each bent in different angles. He then glanced sideways, at the door she had meant to unlock. At the secret she had intended to learn, without even asking his permission.

            And do what with the knowledge?

            His eyes narrowed as he turned his attention back towards Sansa. The actions and words from the club below flitted through his mind, all of which amounted to a half an hour at best. Despite having been locked up for the better part of the night, Sansa had _warmed_ to him in the bar. Or, perhaps not warmed, not yet. But he felt and saw the fear leave her as he made small-talk, as he put on his overused face of normalcy. As he brushed his fingers against hers.

            If Sansa really planned to kill him – to stab him in the back, as it were, with a lime-cutting knife – Petyr had quite literally turned his back to her. He gave her the opportune moment dowstairs. But he hadn’t given her the proper fuel for –

            Remembrance dawned on Petyr.

            If he had been debating on naming himself _fool_ for rushing into an oncoming storm to save this near-stranger, then the label was well-deserved now for not hiding the body.

            The rain would have disposed of all evidence. And yet he kept him, kept _it_ in plain sight. Oh what a fool Petyr was! What a fool those auburn locks turned him into.

            Petyr pressed his lips tightly, biting softly on the inside of his lip. As though everything hadn’t been shit already, he thought.

            But… This was to his advantage. The body, the room, even the fucking _rain_. Petyr only had to play his hand expertly and show Sansa exactly what she wanted.

            And who was better at that than Petyr?

            No one else who was alive, that’s for sure.

            He exhaled, keeping his eyes locked on hers. His lips loosened from that tight line as he spoke. “Between you and me, I’d prefer not being stabbed at such an early hour. At least, here in the South we tend to backstabbing around noon.” That hardly seemed to do much to lower her stance, to remove the blade from its shaking path towards him. She kept staring, in fear and confusion. “Or, at least give the courtesy of not using the knife if you still want to put something in me.”

            There. That false strength she carried faltered at the _implication_. And here came back the Sansa who – as of a day ago – had done nothing worse than forgetting her _please_ s and _thank you_ s. Even being forced in the arrangement with that bastard Lion (both in name and in birth) seemed unable to reshape the Sansa that had been so carefully and politely molded. Death of an entire city was doing that job, if slowly.

            Petyr leaned against the wall, casually draping one foot over the other. The knife was still in her grasp, the blade hardly longer than her middle finger, but long and sharp enough to do damage to either of them.

            He glanced at the hairpins littering the floor. Picking locks was certainly not in the skillset Petyr imagined for this ladylike Wolf. Well, hardly a skill if she hadn’t been able to pick the lock open. These locks were simple for security reasons, but in place for privacy. He had the master keys for each door, used only when a certain customer was suspected of _mishandling_ the girls. Oh, the amount of privacy they thought they had, cooped in these rooms. If only they knew…

            All the while Petyr ignored her, pretending as though the blade mattered little. As though this was hardly the first time he had a knife held against him. It wasn’t. But Petyr much preferred to be the bearer of the knife than the possible recipient.

            “What exactly did you plan to find in there?” Petyr asked.

            Down the blade went, an inch or two, but not far enough. Sansa’s poised intimidation was gone now, confusion spreading through her eyes and mouth. _She_ had been the one prepared to confront, to interrogate and intimidate. She hadn’t been able to succeed, had no evidence – and now she was caught without the _evidence_ needed to warrant her search. Nothing concrete or damning towards Petyr. Which was exactly what he needed.

            “You…” she began, stammering. The grasp on the blade tightened, her knuckles ghostly pale.

            “As you can see, I’m not in there,” he interrupted before she could sort through her words. “You could have knocked first. It _is_ polite.”

            Her fingers were slowly rotating the handle as nerves and embarrassment and _fear_ coiled in Sansa’s stomach. Her eyes had been staring at him the entire time, trying to figure out: him; the rain; the _body_. And herself – how she was here and not lying dead in the alley. Petyr couldn’t help but stare as she nibbled at her top lip, working her way at one side and then the other.

            “Is… Is this where you hide the rest of them?” she got out. Sansa raised the blade again, it and her gaze aimed at him. Still, she took half a step back. Unsure; afraid. “Where the rest of the _bodies_ are?”

            This little Wolf has found her _fire_ , it seemed.

            Petyr had to pull back on the smirk that was dying to lift the corner of his mouth. He realized after that a grin would have ruined it.

            He had half a mind to continue throwing taunts at her, at implying that this room was hardly large enough for all the bodies of the people he’d fucked over through his many years in King’s Landing alone. Perhaps the entire building was large enough to hold them all. But he held back – she was on the edge and he had to tread carefully to pull her back. Back from the rain that she gripped tightly in her fingers.

            “They aren’t _mine_ ,” he replied finally.

            Sansa’s hand wavered slightly. “What do you mean?”

            She had seen _him_ downstairs, so there was hardly any use in denying any presence of dead bodies within. This was the next best thing.

            Petyr ran his fingers through his hair in an attempt to dissolve the tension, the fear that was emanating from Sansa. He wondered how she wasn’t choking on it.

            “You know Joffrey, I’m sure.” He paused. “Or, people like that _honorable_ and _just_ Lion.”

            Sansa’s eyes flicked to the side for a moment. Yes, she definitely knew men like that impudent child. She knew Joffrey and his inclinations – and Petyr, too, was full aware of that boy’s impulses and _pastimes_. There was a special set of fury aimed at Joffrey, that unfortunately was difficult to quench from the son of the most publicly powerful man in Westeros ( _publicly_ , of course; Petyr always imagined himself as holding the balls of each of those powerful men whether they knew it or not). Joffrey was a pawn for the future in Petyr’s once intricate board. Joffrey now was likely as dead as he deserved.

            But – despite the vehemence and indignation at the impulses of the boy – Petyr had to agree that the lengths at which Joffrey went to slake his desires with other women when _Sansa_ was at his fingertips... Any man would rage and lust for even a glimpse at the Red Wolf. Sansa’s beauty was a goddess upon the earth. Even with the bulgy clothes, the darkened eyes, the sunken and pale cheeks; she was something completely _else_.

            Petyr was still the fool for being susceptible to it.

            In those eyes Petyr saw Sansa remember all those _men_ like Joffrey. Every man that sized her body and pleasured themselves at the thought of what she felt and sounded like. Every man in King’s Landing, in that regard, was a man like Joffrey.

            And then there was a category of men like Joffrey all on their own. Fewer, but just as disgusting. Worse, even.

            To the world’s regret, one of them wormed his way into King’s Landing.

            Sansa’s eyes came back to him, a new layer of fear covering those irises. She pictured them all, too, those terrible men. Finally, she found her voice. “What about them?”

            “Joffrey, as I’m sure you are _aware_ , is far from the, ah, nicest man in King’s Landing.” And neither am I, he thought. “And while you think he is an epitome of misconduct and the like, there exist men who are _far worse_ in their wants.”

            “Like you?”

            Petyr wasn’t sure to take that as an insult or as a fair judgement of his character. Especially from someone who was far unlearned in the dealings Petyr dealt in, in the amount of ties he had all over the country.

            “No, they are far worse than I am.” Are they?

            The knife hardly dropped, but why would it? Petyr had yet to show any of the _evidence_ that would separate Petyr from the type of men Sansa was used to here. Perhaps it would have been easier to blame the whole thing on Joffrey, rain included. Too late now.

            “The man you found below,” Petyr began, “was responsible for a lot of terrible things. What’s behind these doors is one of them.” Petyr still held out that he could avoid opening the room, avoid it leeching into the hall and tainting this safe space.

            Sansa’s eyes flitted towards the door, then towards where the dead man lay a floor below.

            “Do you know who he is– was? Why he was here?”

            Of course. “Unfortunately no, he wasn’t someone that I’ve had the displeasure of dealing with before,” he said. The fact she hadn’t known him – or hadn’t admitted the fact? – was intriguing. Petyr imagined all Northerners knew one another. “He was loud, drunk, a disturbance to other customers and employees. In his stupor, he tripped down the stairs and smashed his head. I had planned to notify the authorities just as the rain began to fall.” He needn’t say anything else about that last bit– they were both painfully aware of what the rain was capable of. Of how loud the screams were that night.

            Sansa was silent for a moment, thinking on her own experience with the rain. On everything and everyone she saw. And taking in what he said, analyzing it, debating whether he was telling the truth. If the story checked with what little proof there was. Then: “What did he do?”

            Not satisfied with that then, he mused. And then wondered what would satisfy her. Petyr coughed to hide the implicating smirk.

            “I would prefer not to open the door–”

            “Why? Hiding something?”

            He mulled her over. “Technically. It’s rather horrifying, and I would prefer not to see it again.” That hardly won her over. “But if you insist on seeing why he was deserving of his demise, you can continue picking the lock. See for yourself the horrors of man’s temperament.”

            The flinch that coursed through her was slight. She was bringing her hand – the one with the knife – towards her left arm, as a reminder of the _temperament_ of a man she was forcibly tied to.

            Petyr could only imagine the sort of temperament Joffrey displayed for his betrothed. How much of it was a _just because_ , and how much was rightly deserved? Sansa was far from the type to _deserve_ any sort of punishment or correcting, Petyr liked to imagine. Her septas trained her to be the culmination of proper and polite. No wounds were rightly deserved, none that came from that blubbering twit of a Lion.

            And it was gone – the momentary relapse of memories that Sansa had much preferred to forget. She stared him straight in the eyes with hers, clear and blue with the underlying tint of fear.

            “Open it.”

            He let out a sigh in _annoyance_ , but did not let it been seen as such. Of course this new game would be far from that simple; it never was.

            “Of course. But I need to retrieve the keys from upstairs.”

            Her feet moved before her words, a step towards him. To stop, or to urge? “I can –” A pause, rearranging her words. “Lead the way.”

            Still as cautious and distrusting as any other Wolf that Petyr encountered. As they walked back up towards his rooms, he thought on that. On the Wolves. On how they trusted their own kind and their Northern people. On how, with the right price, the lesser Northern peoples could be swayed away from exchanging in trust and into dealings of gold and flesh.

            The terms of the treaty to end the so-called succession were stricter than Petyr had imagined. But still he worked his way through the loopholes and fabricating his own, rearranging his pieces as others moved of the Lions’ accord. They were all poised here, awaiting the tumult.

            And then the rain swept half the pieces away and dissolved the rest.

            Petyr made no sudden moves or motions or quips as he was followed by Sansa and her meager knife. He could have disarmed her, reversed where that knife pointed. Proven just exactly _who_ was in power here.

            But pretending to fall to your enemies was an exciting move, given that your next move was to utterly rip your opponent from their seat and send them far down into a pit of their own ignorance. He would regret this in due time.

            Petyr let Sansa keep her knife because it made her feel as though she had a semblance of an upper hand. Oh, if she only knew.

            He grabbed the keys from his desk, heading towards the door again. As Petyr passed her, he saw how her eyes were transfixed on the radio.

            Back they travelled to the second floor. The key fit snuggly in the lock, and Petyr paused to look at Sansa. To silently ask her one final time if she was _prepared_ for what was on the other side. She might have been, with what the streets of King’s Landing had on display. He was regretting this choice, thinking back on how he might have displaced the blame. The smell seeping through from being this close already was tickling his nostrils.

            Her eyes were fixed on the handle, the door, but still she gave him a small, uncertain nod.

            He twisted the handle, pushed open the door, and took a generous step out of range.

            Gods, the _smell_ made him nearly revisit the drink he had and whatever was left over in his stomach. It crept up his throat, but Petyr managed to keep the bile down, to choke back on the tears that stung from the putrid stench.

            Sansa was not as lucky.

            He wasn’t sure if she even _saw_ what was in the room, but Petyr hadn’t cared. He moved to close the door again. Its slam echoed in the hall.

            Petyr covered his mouth and nose with the collar of his shirt, and breathed through his mouth. It helped marginally.

            Good gods, he hadn’t thought they could decompose that _quickly_. He only caught a glimpse, and he regretted the sight. A little over a day and they were as wasted away as bodies that had _weeks_ to fester, to slowly fall apart from the forces of nature.

            It would have been kinder to let them succumb to the rain itself. At the least, it would have been _cleaner_.

            Not like Petyr had a choice.

            He looked at Sansa, at the mess that was over her now. Her fingers had dropped the knife in lieu of attempting to keep that breakfast apple at bay. Insstead it seeped between her fingers.

            Petyr wasn’t sure if it did anything, opening that door. She had to have seen countless bodies yesterday, all deteriorated and falling apart. They had the ventilation of outside and the space of the city. Here, cramped, they _rotted_. The flesh carefully pared from bone before being thoroughly soaked in water…

            It was proof – but of what? Of the terrors of that infected water, of what sort of damage it could inflict? Or of the horrors that the man who caused them wished to inflict on all of King’s Landing, all of Westeros. Their screams of agony were masked by how little skin was left on their faces.

            Petyr grabbed Sansa’s arm, careful to avoid her breakfast on her hands and on the floor, and led her from the room, with its smell and horror and death. He hoped the smell would die down. In a building shut off from the outside, the smell could only fester.

            He set her down at the nearest booth and continued towards the bar, towards the storage in the back. In a blur of motions, Petyr was setting an electric kettle atop the bar counter and filling it with yesterday’s ice. At least he had the foresight of unplugging the fridge, of turning off the air conditioner and anything that used water or was connected to the outdoors. There wasn’t much ice left, but enough the fill the kettle. They’d have to scrape at the freezer walls if they wanted to fill a second cup.

            As the water boiled, Petyr glanced over at Sansa. She hadn’t moved, hadn’t even seemed to register that she was downstairs now. What was roiling through her mind now? Was it a revelation, a realization? Something that told her that everything Petyr said was absolute bullshit? Or warring thoughts – he was a liar liar liar; he was telling the truth.

            Petyr had no way of knowing which voice Sansa would finally agree with.

            The ice in the kettle was sizzling, melting before finally beginning to boil. He had time.

            He took in a deep breath, another, before covering his mouth and nose again and braving the stairs up. The breaths he took were few and far between, but the air was still putrefying, festering with that death long-cooped up. There was no way in knowing whether it would ever clear, or if this was the next in line of that damned series of well-deserved punishment for all the lies and deceits in his life. It seemed likely.

            His feet brought him into Beth’s room, opposite of Ros’. Neither of those girls – none of them – would ever be back here. They wouldn’t mind someone rifling through their drawers, through whatever small personal items they chose to keep in their rooms.

            Petyr combed through Beth’s belongings, grabbed a few items, and returned downstairs just as the kettle went _click_.

            He heard it, so clear and echoing. Against the building, the rain was so soft now. It would be clear in the hour or earlier.

            Petyr deposited the clothes on the booth where Sansa sat and moved towards the bar. There weren’t proper teacups down here – in his rooms, but Petyr wasn’t feeling up to braving through the smell again. So liquor glasses would do.

            It was lucky, in its own demented sort of way, that there was even the kettle and the small box of tea bags down here. Petyr had imagined the North to indulge themselves in a heavy beer or the like. But _he_ didn’t; the now-dead man took his tea as black and scalding as it could be.

            Despite his unnecessary and _complicated_ death, that man proved to be useful after all. If only the rest of the North was, too.

            Petyr had to use a dish rag to bring the glasses over to the table where Sansa still sat unmoving. Her soul seemed to have left her, leaving Petyr alone with a husk of what was left of the once noble and proud Stark. Setting one glass before her, he said, “No sugar or milk, I’m afraid.” That didn’t stop Petyr from adding a generous dash of alcohol in his own.

            That seemed to wake her just enough. Her eyes moved to stare at the steaming tea rather than towards nothing. “Water,” she murmured.

            It was a question she had no energy left to fully ask: Isn’t the water poisoned? Is this how you plan to kill me, after all the shit I’ve been through and the horrors you’ve committed?

            Not all horrors are of my design, Petyr wanted to say. Instead: “The water came from ice from the freezer. It’s been there long before the rain began.” To prove his point, Petyr careful brought the towel-wrapped glass to his lips and proceeded to burn his tongue. It hurt like hell. “See? Safe.”

            Content and not as foolish, Sansa brought her filthy hands to wrap around the toweled glass, absorbing the warmth. As though trying to channel the life back into her body. She kept them there for a long moment, staring at the surface. Petyr noticed color slowly return to her deathly-pale skin, lips, eyes. There was so much of that in her life recently; death. He found himself, oddly, _proud_ that she was still alive. And saddened, that this was her fate now, her future.

            But would his plans for her really have been better?

            Her voice was quiet as she spoke, lips barely moving to form the word. “Why?”

            Petyr interpreted the question as a series of them: Why were those people so _horribly_ disfigured? Why would somebody do that to someone else? Why didn’t you warn me? Why were they here?

            There were so many _why_ s, far too many that Petyr was able or willing to answer. And even more unspoken that Sansa hadn’t even known to ask.

            So Petyr answered the best he could, the best he was willing to divulge. “That man was upset, angered. He felt as though the world wasn’t playing to his own devices. That what he wanted was forcibly taken from him and given to someone less deserving.”

            Petyr’s gaze flickered to the back corner where the man’s body lay. He was dead – he had no voice anymore. No voice to deny. “I don’t know where he got it, or how. He barged in before opening hours, drunk as the late King, drunker. He was shouting, demanding retribution. Nothing I said would make him listen to reason. So he got his payback – on who and why, I can’t say. He opened door after door, and threw his drink over the first people he saw.” Petyr didn’t mention how or why people were in that room in the first place. How they got there in the off-hours, or how they came to be horribly disfigured long before the water. It was a warning. “I was leading him out when they started to scream. The drink wasn’t alcohol – it was something else, something _worse_.” So much worse than anything he could have predicted. “It was a blur what happened next, but he tripped, died. And that’s when the rain started.”

            Sansa was still staring into her tea. She didn’t react one bit to anything he said, so motionless that Petyr wondered if she would have even noticed if he starting spouting utter gibberish.

            He took another sip of the tea/alcohol, swirling the glass in his hand. The drink was warm, and a chill swept through the building as they sat in silence. It was so heavy without the rain that Petyr wished for the dull sound to fill the space with _something_. With the illusion that outside these walls things were still moving and alive.

            Petyr sat and stared at Sansa, thinking on how different everything would have played out if not for _him_. Wondering whether or not he was out there still. Or if the rain delivered him what was deserved. If at least one good thing came out of this miserable grey and death.

            As dawn wore on over King’s Landing, they continued to sit in a silent world where it was just the two of them left.


	5. storm in a teacup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Sorry this chapter took a bit longer than usual. I had to scrap the original plot and rewrite a new one, but this one is definitely a lot better. So many questions and mysteries ... that will begin to be answered next chapter. Probably.  
> Once again, lots of love to everyone reading this:) Thanks for all your encouragement!]

 

            When Sansa was younger – about eleven or twelve name-days – she remembered her and her brothers and sister out in the nearby woods exploring. Looking for hidden caves and the lost treasures buried within. Or perhaps playing another round of make-believe swordfighting. There were all sorts of pastimes they engaged in as children, none of which kept the Starks free of bruises and dirt. It was hard to recall what exactly they had been doing before they came across _that_.

            It was Jon who found it. Lying beside a creek, its body as cold as the brisk Northern winds – it was hard to tell for certain how long it had been lying there, waiting for death. Jon had tried to hide the body, blocking it from view. But her younger brothers were careless and curious about the world, dodging Jon’s arms until they saw it too.

            A dead wolf. Pelt once shining white and soft, was now matted in its own blood and gore. From neck to tail the skin had been carefully sliced and pried open to reveal the insides, which were in turn arranged outside of the body. She only had the briefest of glances before nearly revisiting her lunch.

            That’s what Sansa thought of when she looked into that room. The image of the skinned wolf paralleled that of the man – skin barely holding on, blood coating every inch of mottled flesh. Even with the addition of the water that tore through and ate at the dead man – Sansa kept seeing the wolf.

            Even when Joffrey’s men surreptitiously had Lady murdered because she was a _nuisance_ , Sansa had forgotten about that poor wolf lying in the creek. She hoped that Lady had a swift, clean death.

            Man or wolf – nothing was deserving of a torture like that.

            They told their parents, of course. Wolves were growing scarcer as time wore on and humans fought for control over nature. The war with nature was less gruesome in the North, where forests and valleys and rivers still threaded through the land amongst modern cities and roads. But it was a constant battle with natural casualties.

            The wolf was no battlefield accident. Someone had thought on its death, had _planted_ it in those neighboring woods beside Winterfell for someone to see. A wolf – the age-old sigil of the Starks. A warning.

            Now that she was older, Sansa had to wonder if they had been alive when it happened: the wolf and the man. When their skin was meticulously cut and pried away to reveal throbbing muscles and pumping veins – did their cries for help echo emptily through the ears of their torturer? The thought of it alone was making her nauseous again.

            _Clank_.

            The sound brought Sansa out of those horrifying memories. Instead of the blood and gore she was staring at a party’s worth of clear, full bottles of alcohol.

            Vodka.

            She had forgotten where she was, who she was with. Her senses began filling in the blanks: the club and with its darkness and mirrors; the void of the once-present and relentless rain that tore through and devoured King’s Landing; the lingering smell of her own vomit on her hands.

            The man who’s fingers casually twirled one of the bottles in circles, and whose eyes had been on her. Even when she brought her gaze up to recognize him, to remember he was here and he was the one who saved her – always watching, calculating, waiting.

            “Drowning yourself in drink?” she croaked out, her throat so parched and burning and tired of _everything_. Sansa idly remembered the cup of tea he had prepared for her, sitting cold within her hands. She brought the towel-wrapped glass to her lips and drank, to reinvigorate herself and her throat more so than to enjoy the taste. She wasn’t even sure it tasted like anything. It was tea of some sort.

            Sansa didn’t see the smirk that grew on the corner of Petyr’s mouth, but she could hear it in his voice all the same. “Not now. And not with cheap vodka at least,” he added.

            He had also brought a handful of dish rags. Sansa was finishing off the rest of her probably-tea as he cracked one of the bottles open. Petyr lightly dabbed one of the rags in vodka and handed it to her. A variety of possibilities ran through her mind on _what_ exactly he was planning, or what she was meant to do with a drunken rag.

            A few moments passed. He saw her confusion and instead brought the rag to wipe his own hands with. “Closest thing to a shower we’ll get, unfortunately.” Sansa saw flecks of her apple-and-cranberry-juice vomit on the cuffs of his dress shirt. She then flitted her eyes in embarrassment at the rest of his ensemble, to check for other bits of revisited breakfast. Petyr noticed the cuffs, too, and dabbed at the specks with a corner of the rag. “Vodka is rather versatile: just as good at cleaning with as getting drunk.”  

            He continued: “I’ve brought down a change of clothes, too.” Petyr talked without ever looking her way, so focused on cleaning his shirt. Sansa couldn’t bear to examine her own clothing for fear of how _potent_ the sight had been on upsetting her stomach. By the burn still lining her throat, her clothes must have been awful.

            Finally content with the cuffs, Petyr reapplied some more vodka to a different corner of the rag and set it beside her hands. Hers were still cupping the empty glass, but Sansa pretended not to notice how his fingers brushed against hers. Pretended not to notice that he took longer than necessary to set down a stupid rag.

            Sansa jerked the glass back to her mouth, drinking in the dredges of the tea for need of something to occupy her own hands. Pretending – and likely failing – to not notice the muddiness in her brain.

            He had the ease of _pretending_ not as awkwardly as she did, as though nothing had happened. Petyr took a separate rag and began dusting at the toes of his shoes. Sansa didn’t dare wonder how badly those were affected or how much the shoes cost, too interested in the bottom of her empty glass.

            Several long moments passed in that silence, that Sansa wished for rain if only to occupy the room and her brain.           

            She broke it: “Why did you stay?”

            Sansa hadn’t thought to ask it earlier in any of their brief moments together. She also had recognized that discontinuity of sorts. That while she had been escaping the hell-pit of bodies in the Red Keep only to fall into an even worse fate in the heart of King’s Landing – that Petyr had been _here_. Waiting for…what?

            He didn’t stop his movements, didn’t seem to even acknowledge that she had asked a question. Petyr replied only after finishing his business with his shoes. “I didn’t.”

            _Didn’t what_? Didn’t stay because he had nowhere else to go? Didn’t stay because he was trapped here of some volition? Didn’t stay because he was too busy tearing the skin from someone?

            She kept the glass by her mouth if only to have something to hide her emotions. He, too, was hiding something, playing at reading the vodka bottles.

            “Why?”

            Petyr looked at her then. A war of emotions on his face, in his eyes. There was anger – Sansa could identify that _so well_ now. Confusion – at the rain, the world; at Sansa herself and her curiosity. And that other thing that Sansa had difficulty identifying the moment she saw him. It was that mixture of the concern and relief of a parent, but trapped with something else. _Warped_ with something else.

            He was studying her, too. Sansa wondered how easily her emotions could be read. How _poor_ she was at concealing them.

            “Because of the rain,” Petyr finally answered.

            The rain…

            There was so much Sansa _knew_ he was hiding from her, keeping from her. Small answers for such large questions, not to mention the way Petyr seemed to brush off certain _details_ during his account of the dead men in his establishment. One dead man could be written off as an unlikely accident. But three? In the same building, with another man left to tell their tales?

            Sansa had a feeling that there wasn’t a shred of truth in anything he said.

            But then… Who was it that once told her that every lie began with a truth? A scrap of a truth, molded to make the listener believe what exactly they wanted to hear.

            If that was the case, what was the glimpse of truth Petyr was willing to share with Sansa – with a complete stranger? And which were the blatant lies?

            Petyr meanwhile had been fiddling with the rag between his fingers, folding the fabric one way and then the other. Sansa wondered if he was even aware he was doing it; or, like her, it was a habit when he was deep in thought.

            She set her glass down, deciding to leave the questions-and-answers alone for now. There wouldn’t be anything new or telling he was willing to reveal. Not now. Not as they were.

            Her fingers crawled through the air and gently landed on the rag between them, landing far _closer_ on his side than hers. Inches from fingers that had stopped fiddling with the fabric. His eyes – once distantly staring at nothing – were fixated on the space between their fingers. She did too. There was a consideration twitch in Petyr’s fingers, the beginning of a movement–

            Sansa yanked the towel from his grip and began working it over her own skin and nails. The palm of her left hand was the worst – she had used it in a feeble attempt at stopping her stomach. She only succeeded in redirecting the vomit onto her own clothes. Sansa carefully worked an edge of the rag under her fingernails, so seemingly entranced in the task. Her eyes flitted slightly above where her hands were working to see his own focused on her motions.

            “Who was he?”

            Petyr visibly snapped his focus away – a slight movement, a slight break in his gaze, but enough to tell Sansa what she needed. Not about the dead man though.

            His eyes moved behind her towards the back of the club, and Sansa looked there too through the mirrors. The shadowy corner where _one of many_ dead bodies lay forgotten. “Some Northman. I don’t know who, they all look and sound alike.”

            Sansa pretended not to be offended. “And what about the…other ones?”

            Petyr’s eyes came back to focus on her. They were still; hiding. It took several seconds of silence, of staring at one another, before he flatly responded: “I don’t know.”

            Lies.

            Sansa instead responded with a noncommittal, almost bored, _hmm_ and continued her work.

            Her hands were clean now – as clean as vodka could get, which she was surprised was a lot better than she thought. And it didn’t have that same sting of hand sanitizer. Sansa wondered where exactly someone like Petyr would have heard about using alcohol for anything _but_ consumption. And whether any of those other uses were for cleaning up messes of a different sort.

            As she rolled up her left sleeve, just a few inches, just enough to see the first two of the line of fading black circles, Sansa couldn’t help but glance at Petyr. To gauge his reaction. It was a definite _something_ , but once again the name eluded her.

            Her fingers wiped at the dribble of vomit that wound beneath her sleeve, and she wondered back on that day. Two days ago.

            It took two days for her life to have changed completely. She was betrothed to Joffrey, the next-in-line most powerful man in all of Westeros. She was accosted and abused by her own _fiancé_ , with future vows to _honor and love and cherish_ never seeming to cross his mind. His idea of _honoring and loving_ his wife-to-be was to ensure that any bruises and scars wouldn’t be visible to anyone important.

            Now she was here. With a different sort of man, but whose intentions might not have differed too much. At least Sansa knew Joffrey hadn’t killed a man, not with his bare hands. Joffrey had his own dogs for that.

            She could make a run for it. Excuse herself and bolt out the front doors (or the back, if Petyr managed to lock the front). It wasn’t raining – she could make it _somewhere_. Even to Joffrey’s apartments. See if he was alive, if any of them survived the rain. And then make that long, laborious journey up North. Back home. Check up on her family and her friends, and the land that she grew up exploring and marveling at. Leave King’s Landing for good.

            But then she would never know. The things that Petyr kept locked away in his brain. The dead men, the rain, even _saving her_. There was something – some _things_ – that Petyr wasn’t letting on. She knew it.

            Sansa would leave for the North. But not yet.

            Her fingers had been rubbing the vodka-soaked rag over her forearm for so long – idle motions as Sansa thought on everything – that the purpose of cleaning was long gone. The alcohol probably seeped into her system. Better vodka than death-water.

            And all the while, Petyr hadn’t moved. Hadn’t shifted his eyes from the lazy motions of her hand, or from the fading bruises upon her skin.

            She wondered where Margaery got her confidence from.

            Content with her hands and arm, Sansa tossed the rag back towards the table, nearly knocking over the open bottle in the process. Petyr grabbed it before it tumbled towards the floor. He righted it much further from the table’s edge, moving the others away as well. She wanted to berate herself for the near-accident, but at the same time was thankful for the removal of his stare.

            As her fingers toyed with the clothes he brought down – a dead woman’s clothes, she thought, shuddering – Sansa spoke: “I’d like some privacy, please.” The next time she met with Margaery, Sansa would need to make amends and ask questions. Joffrey and her and everyone else were probably alive like Sansa, too. They could very well be cooped up inside, waiting out the storm. Hundreds of people, too. The idea that Sansa and Petyr were some of the few people left alive in King’s Landing – and possibly all of Westeros? all of the _world_? – made her shiver.

            “Of course,” he responded. There was a look underneath the mask of boredom, a slight shift at the corner of his mouth that implied Petyr had something else to say but chose to bite it back. He did that a lot. Instead, he collected one of the other unopened bottles and another rag, lifting the bottle in a _see you later_ sort of gesture, and left without another word. Without even so much as a passing glance back at her, in person or through the mirrors.

            Sansa waited several minutes, staring at the empty staircase, before moving to remove her clothes.

            She had two or three layers of everything in her meek attempt to combat the rain with garments. How foolish to think the cotton, no matter how thick, could have provided any sort of cover against that _raging storm_. Against the death that she had been only feet away from embracing.

            Clinging to each of her clothes were layers of filth and stench that Sansa was smart enough not to verify with a cursory whiff. There was so much grime and fear and nerves (and vomit) clinging to those old clothes. And – with a sense of embarrassment and thanks that she was alone – the crotch of her jeans had got wet. The smell of piss was far fainter than that of everything else stuck to the fabric. Sansa could only wonder when – out of the _countless_ times in the past day that she had been scared shitless - did it happen.

            The spare clothes were a mix-match of sizes and styles that Sansa had to wonder what sort of woman who worked in these _facilities_ would own them, and why. They could have been Ros’. Or any of the other nameless women that made their living under the ever-present gaze of Petyr. Sansa didn’t want to imagine what that was like.

            The clothes were, thankfully, _normal_. None of those frilly or lacey or skimpy things that Sansa knew women in these positions wore. Knew because of the predilection Joffrey had towards them, especially when drunk. Would Sansa have ever been seen in those sorts of clothes? Was that something Joffrey would have wanted? Or was Sansa intended only for political appearances and childbearing?

            Sansa’s old future hardly had any promise of _enjoyment_ , but neither did her current one.

            She made quickest work of switching out her undergarments, for fear of someone seeing her. She made cover of the table, eyes focusing towards the stairs and the door and even flitting amongst the mirrors for fear that there _was_ someone watching. Paranoia, if anything.

            Finally tying her boots back on – the one thing Petyr hadn’t brought a spare of – Sansa made her way out of the booth. Everything was slightly too small for her save the shirt, which was fell loosely over her shoulders. She inspected herself in the mirror, checking out the fit and the style as though the world hadn’t literally just ended. It was then that she remembered the _mess_ of her face. She made quick work with a clean rag to right the makeup and tears and filth that lingered on her skin.

            Her fingers collected and re-braided her wild hair as Sansa walked back over towards the man under the sheet. He was still there and dead as ever; a good sign that the zombie horde was not yet about to take over the world. Joffrey loved those sorts of movies, mostly because there was so much _killing_ of zombies in them.

            Looking over her shoulder just in case, Sansa lifted the sheet away completely and stared at the man. At his clothing, at his face. She could make out a small dent at the back of his head, just behind the ear, where something soundly hard would have caved his skull in. Sansa brought her face nearer and sniffed near his mouth – it was faint, and hard to discern with whatever other smells lingered in a nightclub. But there was the trace of alcohol soaked in the man’s skin and lips.

            So Petyr hadn’t been lying.

            This man had been drunk, and sometime afterwards had a fall and died. The bigger question left was did this man actually die _because_ he slipped down the stairs and cracked his head open? Or did someone _help_ his demise?

            And was that someone Petyr?

            In all of her observations of the man and of the brief glance at the horrors that he kept hidden under his own business roof, Sansa had a feeling he preferred not to dirty his hands. Nor would he be capable of something as disgusting as skinning someone alive. But Sansa could see him _accidentally_ pushing someone down a stair.

            Sansa moved down towards the man’s side, kneeling before his body, and began rummaging through the clothes. Perhaps there was something on him. Something incriminating that Petyr had missed. What she would give for a tucked-up note with the words _Petyr in the bar with a wineglass_ in a clear, bold script. Or an even simpler _he did it_.

            There wasn’t anything of import in the pockets of the pants or jacket. She even went so far as to look in the shoes, where some Northern men were paranoid enough to store valuable documents or items. Some boots had hidden pockets sewn on the inside for just that purpose. But this man either never used them, or Petyr knew about those pockets, too.

            Not even a wallet to identify the man.

            She stared at the face, at the skin that was paling and bloating from its untimely death. There wasn’t anything recognizable about his features. He seemed so ordinary, so _common_ that Sansa could picture tens of these men up North. All of them were even wearing these same bland shades of clothes. The only thing of note was an X embroidered on the jacket lapel. Besides that, she could glean was that the man was probably about Petyr’s age, and that was it.

            Petyr had done a thorough job of covering his tracks. Would an innocent man have cleaned the corpse of a dead man, especially if said innocent man had planned to alert the authorities?

            So _convenient_ that the rain began just as this man died.

            Sansa covered him back with the sheet out of respect. He no more deserved to die than any of the people outside did from the rain.

            Her feet brought her to the bottom of the stairs before her head turned to stare at the front door again. At the escape that was so close to her. She could do it, Sansa told herself time and again. Open the door and never look back. She even had the feeling Petyr hadn’t even bothered to lock it back up. Maybe he did. But maybe not.

            That’s what he expected of her. Of this stupid, foolish embarrassment of a girl that just threw up all over herself. He was taunting her, wasn’t he? Just _begging_ her to leave. Wanting to see how far she would make it before the rain returned to reclaim its escaped convict.

            Sansa climbed the stairs. Before she reached the top, the smell attacked her nose and mouth, and the image of skin hanging from bone came flooding back. She covered her face with the collar of her shirt and continued, even as the smell worsened with each step.

            At the other end of the hall, opposite of the stairs continuing the trek up, was a small janitor closet. Like the other room leading down through the service hall, this door was well-concealed among the paint and wood pattern of the walls. In it, Sansa was thankful to find a large container of bleach, half-full. She had to unscrew it before carrying it to the unsightly _mess_ she made on the floor. And a bit on the walls. It was difficult to throw the bleach with only one hand – the other was firmly clamped over her nose and mouth, but failing to block out the worse of the death. She did her best to keep the liquid off of her as she applied it generously.

            The suffocating odor of bleach overwhelmed that of rotting flesh. It was both better and worse than before. Sansa still couldn’t breathe normally, coughing her way up towards the third floor. But if anything, that kept the lingering images of the dead men at bay.

            There was a door at the top of this set of stairs, and Sansa was thankful for the physical blockade between her and the horrors on the floor below. She leaned against it, removing her hand and inhaling deeply.

            Her stomach growled: a long, torturous snarl that seemed to echo throughout the floor. Sansa’s mind flashed back to those meager snacks Petyr had provided her during her stay in Ros’ room. They were still there, probably. But Sansa could make do without some peanuts and juice if it meant not having to brave the floor below again.

            There was a soft chuckle, too. Petyr was here, sorting through boxes halfway through the room. Sansa hadn’t noticed him at first, but now she was acutely aware of his presence. Of the fact that he was present for every embarrassing moment of her life in the past several hours.

            Except for pissing in the bucket. But he was the _reason_ for that anyways. She wondered if it was worth it to brave the second floor if it meant seeing his reaction as she chucked it at him.

            She already got her own _vomit_ on him; what’s a little piss compared to that?

            Instead, she asked: “What are you doing?”

            Hiding evidence, the voice in her head thought. There could be countless other dead bodies stored underneath or between or even _within_ these boxes.

            “Taking inventory,” Petyr replied.

            “Of what?” she blurted in response. Sansa wove her way through the stacks of boxes, neatly arranged in rows and upon shelves. She would not have recognized most of the labels on them had she herself not fingered those colored glasses downstairs some hours ago.

            “Booze. Plenty of it, if you ever want to get properly drunk for a few weeks. Or months. A pity they didn’t drop alcohol instead.” He meant the clouds – a pity that they didn’t just drop plain not-death-infected water. The clouds could have been full of practically anything else and it would have been fine.

            “A pity.”

            Sansa reached him, where Petyr was carefully taking note of the boxes’ labels. These ones were smaller and boring, less prone to caring something fragile within.

            “Unfortunately,” he began, crouching down to inspect the boxes below, “alcohol is thirsty business.” Petyr pulled one of the boxes out with a bit of effort, prying the tape open. Scooting the cardboard flaps, Petyr dug one hand within and pulled out a bottle, handing it towards Sansa. His gaze aimed up towards her, finally acknowledging her presence. “It’s hard to say how long the rain will keep us in here.”

            On cue, Sansa felt the low rumble echo within the building, within her own chest. It started again as a slow build-up of the faintest of noises. It wasn’t long before the tapping of water against the walls was noticeable, growing louder as they two of them stared at one another.

            A bottle of water. Petyr’s grip on it was lazy, but his arm didn’t move from its proffered angle towards Sansa.

            Was this where the death water was being stored? In the storage above a nightclub? And in the clutches of someone like Petyr?

            It could also have _just_ been a bottle of water. Still, Sansa didn’t reach for it. As the rain began falling steadier against the building, Sansa was growing less favorable to the idea of putting any water in her body, when the water outside could kill on contact.

            Petyr noticed her hesitation. The _crack_ of the lid opening echoed in Sansa’s ears. He brought the bottle to his lips, tilting his head back and taking a long drag of the water. Half of the bottle was gone when he lowered it, almost offering it to Sansa before catching himself and grabbing an unopened one. It floated there, in his hands, in offering; waiting.

            His eyes never left hers.

            Sansa grabbed it by the lid, as far away from his fingers as possible, and muttered “Thanks.” But she didn’t drink it.

            Petyr wasn’t bothered by that, content with the fact that Sansa at least took the bottle from him. “There should be enough water for about a week. Plenty of alcohol, too, if you’d prefer that instead.” He stood, kicking the box back under the shelf. “The only problem between us and the rain is food.”

            He began walking out from the shelves, and Sansa followed. “How much food is there?” she asked.

            Petyr was tapping the bottle against his opposite palm as he walked, considering more than her question. “A few days, at most. There was meant to be a shipment later this week, but that won’t be arriving anytime soon.”

            A few days trapped with a possible murderer. So far Sansa had only managed a few hours. And what would happen when those minimal rations run out? Cannibalism was the first thing that came to her mind, and in turn Sansa wondered if she could take him down. Petyr was maybe two inches taller than her, and hardly had the muscle definition for an easy win for him. His clothes, the way he cleaned himself with the rags – Petyr did not come off as a man that used violence.

            At least it would be an equal fight, she thought.

            “And after that?”

            They were almost at the stairs now. “After what?”

            “After the food runs out.”

            His foot paused on the first step. The rain seemed to echo in the stairway, bouncing down from the roof and repelling off the walls. Petyr didn’t look back at Sansa as he continued his way up. “We’ll see.”

            That was hardly a reassuring answer.

            Was it because Petyr knew that the rain would only last a few days, and a few days’ ration was all that was necessary? Or maybe he was still thinking on solutions, too – on just how they would survive the end of the world.

            The idea that Petyr hadn’t _planned_ to be here when the rain began jumped through her mind again. Sansa was twirling the bottle in her hands. Nervous; afraid.

            Sansa couldn’t help looking through the window as they entered his office. King’s Landing was swathed in brighter shades of gray than the last time she came up here. It was mid-morning, probably. But the rain was relentless still, attacking the buildings and streets with such a force that Sansa wondered if the clouds were _looking_ for something. Looking for someone, egging them to come out and accept the rain. To accept their fate.

            “Do you need anything else?”

            Petyr was standing at the opposite end of the office, beside the door that led to his own personal rooms. He was leaning against the bookshelf that stood on either side of the door, staring at Sansa with that curious, uncertain look. The soft light from outside seemed to soften those slight wrinkles, dulled the grey that crept along his temples.

            “Like what?” Sansa replied, not sure what _else_ she would need. What _else_ he could provide? Answers and a safe passage back North would be a start.

            His head tilted against the shelf. “Nowhere to go with the rain like that. Unless you’d prefer trying to embrace it again.”

            She shook her head.

            Sansa’s eyes fell behind Petyr, towards the desk where the radio sat. She had been _itching_ to turn it on since she first saw it. To break the silence, to make sure she hadn’t gone crazy. Sansa began walking towards it, passing Petyr on her way. “May I?”

            He didn’t respond, but Sansa felt she could hear him nod, even against the rain.       

            This radio was newer, its interface sleek and without dials or the wooden charm like the ones she used before. Sansa groped at the side before finding the power switch.

            Static filled the room. It was as calming as it was nerving, and Sansa was immediately thrown back into the Red Keep. To the people that lay there, dead, and her screams that would forever echo down those cold corridors.

            Sansa pressed the buttons, slowly. Almost terrified of going through the stations and finding nothing but static. Nothing to prove that it was more than just a nameless voice lingering in her mind.

            “– the water.”

            She let out the breath in her, relieved. But also uncertain.

            Sansa had noticed that the voice in her head nagging at her to do the _not stupid_ thing and to _run the hell away_ sounded less like the man on the radio. She remembered that voice, the way it echoed in her rooms. The tone of it one she hadn’t heard before; and still hadn’t. The voice on the radio wasn’t Petyr’s, but the one in her head was starting to sound like him.

            “Do you know who this is?” she asked, not even bothering to turn around. He had to have been staring at her, at this confused girl who he should have let succumb to the water. Instead Sansa focused on the radio, her fingernail scratching at the corner of the buttons.

            “No.”

            He might have been telling the truth. This radio was just a radio – there wasn’t recording equipment, nor paper with the warning dialogued out longer than four words–

            “It’s in the water.”

            They stood there in silence, the sounds of the rain and the mysterious voice filling the space between them.

            “Do you need anything else?” Petyr repeated.

            Answers and answers and answers.

            Sansa turned around, not bothering to switch the radio off. He was indeed facing her, still leaning against the bookshelf. Trying to silently ask for the answers, just as Sansa was. But what sort of answers could Sansa provide? She knew nothing.

            “I’m fine.”

            He nodded slightly and pushed himself off. Petyr opened the door behind him, pausing as if to ask something else. He even turned to look at Sansa with lips slightly parted. But something changed his mind, and he left her alone without another word.

            “It’s in the water.”

            Sansa stood there, leaning against the desk and staring out into the city. Raindrops fell in droves against the window, troops of the smallest droplets that made up the deadliest army. They seemed innocent, didn’t they? That day, staring up at those clouds, wondering why and how so many sheep came bumbling through the skies of King’s Landing. Thinking them to be lost, unsure and afraid.

            They were far from innocent.

            “It’s in the water.”

            She moved towards the door, carefully tiptoeing her way across the wooden floor. Pressing an ear to it, Sansa faintly heard him rummaging through drawers, perhaps. Heard his own feet walking here and there, but nowhere near the door.

            Sansa slowly balanced her unopened bottle of water on the door’s handle, leaning it against the doorjamb. It wouldn’t do much, but any few seconds of warning might be enough.

            “It’s in the water.”

            The drawers of the desk gave a soft groan as Sansa pulled them free. Stacks of paper and opened letters, pens and paperclips and a box of staples. At first glance everything seemed very _normal_. A very normal businessman’s sort of drawer if she had to guess. Sansa’s fingers slowly worked through the ensemble within, reading titles of papers and return addresses. Bills and shipments and the like. Nothing exciting or incriminating.

            Something _clunk_ ed as she shifted another stack of papers. Sansa froze, waiting for Petyr to barge through and toss her outside for an invasion of privacy.

            “It’s in the water.”

            “It’s in the water.”

            No noise beyond his door. Sansa continued, but the breath stuck in her throat persisted. She could feel the sweat beading on her fingers as she grew closer and closer to being _caught_.

            It fell towards the back of the drawer, so far that Sansa had to twist her arm awkwardly to reach it. And – _there_. Her fingers pulled it free.

            It was a coin, iron or nickel, Sansa wasn’t sure. But it was grimey and left residue on her fingertips as she twirled it around. One side was smooth, devoid of anything but minute scratches of wear-and-tear.

            She flipped the coin over.

            There in the center was a large X. A smaller one was inscribed in the outer. They could have been mistaken as a single X if not for the inner one painted in a fading red.

            “It’s in the water.”

            A mark of some sort? A sign, a token of…what?

            Sansa knew she could be overthinking it – overthinking every little detail and possibility. That Petyr honestly was a _good_ sort of person (as good as one gets by running a nightclub and brothel). The coin could have been from any sort of dealing, from a disgruntled worker or customer. Even a personal reminder of something he only knew.

            It’s not, said the voice in her head.

            She continued to spin it in her hand: blank, X, blank, X.

            “It’s in the water.”

            Finally Sansa stuck the coin in her pants pocket and wiped the grime from her hand. The scent of metal still lingered no matter how persistent she rubbed.

            Slowly, carefully, Sansa slid the drawer back.

            She looked out the window again. Looked out into the city, into the world, for perhaps the last time. She said it before, hadn’t she? It was either the rain or Petyr. She couldn’t physically fight the rain, but she might stand a chance against someone of her build. Against someone that was an actual human, and not the wild forces of nature.

            “It’s in the water.”

            She tore her eyes from the window.

            Sansa knocked on his door, the raps echoing amongst the pounding rain. She made sure to grab the bottle before he answered.

            The coin was burning; a heavy weight in her pocket.

            There was no going back now.

            If Petyr was going to play his game of secrets, then Sansa was going to learn how to play it too.


	6. keep a weather eye open

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Sorry this took longer than expected! Totally /not/ because of that smut oneshot I wrote over the weekend (oops).   
> Another Petyr chapter. Which sums down to: more answers, more questions, and more shadiness. Enjoy!]

 

            Several plans months or even _years_ in the making had dissolved completely with the advent of the death-dropping rain. Petyr could not deny nor quench the quiet sort of rage that stirred within him. Hatred towards the rain, and towards the insufferable being that cast it onto the world – human or god or demon or any unholy combination of creature. And hatred towards himself for not planning for the rain. For not realizing, until it was far too late, that the rain and the terror it would inflict was even a possibility worth considering. And even _hours_ before the skies discharged, Petyr still didn’t believe it was possible.

            But the water laced with death was not something entirely new, to either the world or to Petyr.

            It had been ten years since the most recent bout of horrors. A scientific breakthrough that was unleashed upon that unsuspecting rebellion off the coast of Westeros’ western edge. Those little islands and their people, thinking themselves to be of any _import_ in the going-ons of the country. They rallied an army of ships and people in secret, to combat the tyrannical system of government continued to threw the islands measly scraps. A prime minister had been ruling over Westeros, the late Stag, - but the power of the country remained firmly in place in the Crownlands. Why should such a small city with an incompetent man rule over all of Westeros? Why should any single man regardless if he labeled himself king or president or prime minister – why should all the power of half the world rest on his fat, whoring shoulders?

            Those people of the Islands were right in their ideals. But so foolish to think any number of ships could quench the desire of power that rested underneath a crown. To quench the desire to _keep it_.

            The last Dragon left the Stags a kingdom that stretched farther than the eye in every direction. From the hottest deserts in the south to the frozen tundra up north. They also left a store of _madness_ , buried away in winding catacombs beneath their stronghold. The Keep was home to the Dragons above ground, and persons of an unlucky sort beneath. Persons who never rose aboveground again.

            Fight fire with fire; and fight water with water.

            No one would have expected those shining Krakens to fall victim to the oceans they were masters of. To drown under the water that coursed within their own bloods since their ritualistic drowning. Krakens gasping for air through throats burning away; water filling lungs until breaking the dam lining to flood and fill within; reaching for weapons with muscles being _eaten away at_ underneath their own skin.

            Only a handful of those once-valiant Krakens remained. Living to tell the tale of their foolishness. Living in fear of the water they once embraced.

            The Mad King was cackling, from wherever the exceptionally damned were sent after death.

            Whether the prime minister himself was aware of that plot – whether he gave the command or not for madness to be unleased– was highly contested in whispers in back alleys and on the roads. Debate rose, wondering if the Mad King had been reborn. If the time of Dragons really was at an end.

            The whole of Westeros held their tongues and remained under the control of the Stags. If one sort of madness was discovered and used so terribly, what else had been discovered in the depths of the Red Keep?

            What else was still being _created_ there?

            The kingdom was at rest from any large-scale flights of resistance ever since the Krakens. Time went on.

            Then the North felt that itch to rebel.

            Oh, if the Islands were a foolish sort, then the North was _completely idiotic_.

            History repeats itself – isn’t that what they always say? A terrible king is repeated on the throne under a new body and name. A terrible rebellion is instigated against the terrible king. And a terrible end is met for those of the North.

            Except…it wasn’t terrible.

            Causalities like any sort of battle. Skirmishes along the Kingsroad and in the outlying forests of the North. Plans written in code, and stolen by and from the enemy.

            Westeros waited on bated breath for the reappearance of that water. Of the madness that surely the newly-appointed Lions were thrilled to discover. Or were in the process of making.

            A treaty. A bargain: one life for the obedience of an entire territory.

            History did not repeat its violent course.

            And so those delicate threads that were meant to lead plans into their completion were cut and strewn about the playing field within Petyr’s mind.

            He salvaged them then. Things were continuing almost per plan, continuing as though that annoying detour was intended.

            Petyr sat, staring out as the bane of his present and future slithered down the glass. His mind was continuing to make sense of the new tangle of threads, trying to piece things together into some semblance of _intent_.

            Then there were some particularly _red_ threads that were moving of their own course.

            The patter of the rain in his rooms only made the space feel _emptier_. Feel too large for him and his thoughts.

            He poured himself another drink. At least the alcohol wasn’t poisoned.

            Petyr cursed every single drop of rain that slammed into the window and slid down the glass. Every trail of water moving down in a taunt of all the carefully-laid plans burned into nothingness.

            There was no way to know the extent of influence the water had on King’s Landing. Whether it exited solely as the drops hailing from clouds, or whether it had managed to seep into the underworking of the city and contaminate everything.

            Sometimes that was worse than the rain itself: the paranoia. The fear that came from once-automatic thoughts and actions. After the absolutely _wonderful_ day’s events, Petyr’s body moved to bathe and rid himself of the physical and mental grievances. To momentarily forget about the world. The coldness of the tap broke him out of the motions.

            One twist of his hand, and Petyr Baelish would have been no more.

            He jumped away – _actually jumped_ , as if the tap was burning hot. The thrumming of his heart didn’t slow for several long minutes as he stared at the shower. At the ordinariness of it. And the unordinariness of the world now.

            So Petyr sat, stared, and imbibed.

            There was little to do with the rain pouring according its erratic schedule. Difficult to plan when and where to leave. If the rain chose to work with him and not pour for a whole day, those remade plans could continue. Or the rain could completely fuck with Petyr and stop _just barely_ to instill the bravery to head outdoors.

            It couldn’t last forever. Another day, perhaps a week. There were things and people that needed dealing with, none of which could be accomplished with Petyr _brooding_ out the window.

            He thought it was the rain. Almost dismissing the knocks as the water pounding above him, trying with all their strength to break through and leave no survivors.

            It repeated: three short knocks.

            And the reason for his brooding was just beyond that door. The fire that demanded so much of Petyr’s attention, that kept Petyr blind to the precautionary measures against the rain before it fell.

            Petyr approached the door, drink in hand.

            Annoyance flared through his mind first. At the disregard of his first entreaty should she need anything else. Only to wait and ask again ten minutes later. The fickleness of women.

            But…this was not something Petyr was expecting of Sansa. To _approach_ him, of her own business, within his own rooms. Petyr had been sure she would remain silent and waiting in his office until he decided to check on her. Whether that was after the rain finally stopped or not depended on how insane he’d gone from staring at it.

            Petyr opened the door. Sansa was startled to see him, as if expecting someone or something else to barge through at her knocking. Her eyes tried to keep contact with his, but they were faltering.

            He leaned against the doorjamb, sipping at the alcohol. Waiting for her inquiry.

            The radio was still on, to Petyr’s surprise. How Sansa managed not to throw that blasted contraption out the window was a testament to her will. That voice _grated_ on Petyr’s ears. “It’s in the water” it went on and on. It was hardly a warning. A nuisance, at best. A reminder of what Petyr should have planned for but didn’t.

            He had half a mind to do the throwing himself.

            Petyr’s gaze was moving back towards Sansa. Until he saw the disarray. It was so slight, something he was sure even Sansa wouldn’t have noticed to rearrange.

            So she had been rummaging around. If she _had_ found something, Sansa would have high-tailed it out of the building and faired better with the rain outside. It certainly would be a _kinder_ fate.

            The radio broke in again. He couldn’t help the twitch of his eye at the voice. “Is there something you need?”

            Sansa’s body was prepared to take a step back. He saw her muscles tense, saw her foot move imperceptibly. Instead she stood her ground.

            Perhaps she _had_ found something.

            Interesting.

            “I…” she began. Her fingers twirled at the bottle in her grasp – still unopened. “I have some questions.”

            Of course you do, he thought. Petyr raised the glass to his face, pressing just to the side of his mouth, and kept it there. “Don’t we all.”

            Sansa’s hand moved towards her hip, patting at it. Then wiping her hand down the fabric in an attempt to make the move seem casual, unintentional.

            Petyr wondered, as he took a sip, just how far Sansa was willing to go to have her questions answered. Just how important she deemed the answers to be.

            He stepped aside, motioning inwards. “If you don’t mind, we can talk inside.”

            Her eyes widened. Oh poor Sansa – she needed to learn to keep her face in check. She was so expressive, so _open_ that it was a wonder Joffrey hadn’t completely torn her apart. He _had_ , though. Had his fun in asserting his dominance over her innate desire to please. That was to be assumed even without the line of bruises Petyr spot downstairs – at those darkening circles that sent a shiver of hatred clenching at Petyr’s heart.

            Joffrey was dead. Petyr wasn’t, nor was Sansa. The gods were kind in one regard, at least.

             Sansa’s eyes moved from him to the room behind him, back to the office. Wondering, he was sure, whether it was _safe_.

            Of course it wasn’t.

            “Can’t we talk out here instead?” she asked.

            Yes, but where was the fun in that?

            “The alcohol is in here, though.” Petyr drained the rest of his drink and stepped back into his rooms in an act of refilling his glass. He hadn’t planned on another, but something in him was needing it now.

            He was in the process of topping off the glass – motions made deliberately slow – when he heard her footsteps pass the threshold. Sansa made no move to close the door. Wise choice.

            Petyr made his way back to the chair set before the window, sinking into the leather. He crossed one leg over the other knee, setting the glass on an armrest. And he stared at Sansa. Waiting.

            Sansa stood only a few steps into the room, much closer to the door than to Petyr. Able to escape if need be.

            Her eyes stayed away from his, focusing on the grey landscape behind Petyr. On how the clouds quite literally stole the life and color from the city and its inhabitants.

            One of her hands toyed with the hem of the shirt, right at her hip, right where that curious thing sat in her pocket. The shirt’s hem was a ruse. But the nervous energy she put into scrunching the fabric and twirling it between fingers came from something more pressing than being in a building - in a room - all alone with a strange man.

            The shirt itself was too large for Sansa, the collar nearly slipping free from its perch atop her shoulders. The skin there had a _delicious_ golden hue from her brief time in King’s Landing. Back when a sun still existed in the sky. Petyr wondered where else the sun had fallen on her skin, and then wondered how it would taste.

            “I know you know them.” Sansa’s voice was barely louder than the rain thumping on the glass behind Petyr. Even if she whispered or mouthed the words, Petyr would have understood. Reading lips was an _exceptionally_ useful skill in his line of work. It was difficult enough to keep his eyes focused on hers, to keep them from trailing anywhere else.

            “Who exactly?”

            She took a small step forward. “Those men downstairs.” Another step. Cautious.

            Petyr took a long sip of drink to prolong the silence between them. It seemed that Sansa was not as blindly accepting of the words – the blatant _lies_ – that poured from his mouth earlier. Did she want the truth? Or did she want whatever fears that plagued her mind affirmed?

            He set the glass down on a corner, swirling it around. “If I did, what sort of proof do you have?”

            It wasn’t an admission. But wasn’t avoidance of the question an obvious sign of guilt?

            Petyr definitely _was_ guilty. Good gods he was guilty of so many things. Of what she suspected, he couldn’t say for certain.

            Sansa’s fingers ghosted over her pocket again. He couldn’t make out the outline of whatever damning object she found, and began crossing off whatever sort of evidence he might have left lying about in his office. There were a few possibilities. A folded up piece of paper – one that said _I did it I killed them_. A very tiny, very slim book of Petyr’s secrets – which also said, quite bluntly, _I’m guilty_. Of course Petyr had neither of those lying about in such an easy-to-access location. Nor were they as simple to read to cast guilt; Petyr kept any notes written in a code only he knew. Perhaps he instead left lying about some of those strange artifacts from Essos. Rings from once-powerful politicians now dethroned or beheaded. Expensive and mysteriously misplaced jewels from national galleries. Or one of those ridiculous black-and-white coins that were-

            Ah.

            His fingers stopped twirling the glass. Petyr’s eyes darted towards that pocket, in an attempt to see through the fabric.

            It seemed that the list of _foolish things_ Petyr has accomplished was growing larger the longer he kept Sansa around. A list that had begun the moment he spied her below.

            Granted, it was hardly her fault. For the rain. For his being stuck here. For that _thing_ she found that Petyr could hardly stomach to look at. For wiping that thing clean and throwing it out of his mind.

            It definitely could fit in a pocket.

            “–that’s how I know your story wasn’t entirely _true_.”

            Sansa’s voice finally registered through his brain. She had asked something – had given her account of the _proof_ that Petyr had just asked for. It was still firmly hidden in her pocket, that damned token. So her evidence came from something else he so foolishly forgot to hide.

            Petyr started counting off all the dead bodies. Trying to remember if there was someone else he forgot about. None that he could remember.

            “Can you repeat that?” he asked.

            A slight flush crept through Sansa’s face. Embarrassed that her big reveal wasn’t even landing on the ears of the guilty man she was accusing.

            “I, um. I said that the Northman downstairs behind the bar didn’t _reek_ of alcohol. So he couldn’t have been roaring drunk, like you said. So he didn’t – probably didn’t – do what you said. So that’s how I think your story wasn’t…true.” She was losing her confidence as she went through her _proof_ for the second time. Doubt had been creeping through her own mind, clouding what she must have been so sure of before entering.

            “That’s hardly any proof,” he finally replied.

            Sansa was taken aback. All shreds of confidence – gone. But she didn’t leave, didn’t run away crying. She stood her ground. Petyr could see the debate running across her face – to reveal her trump card and call Petyr out for all his assumed crimes. For associating himself with murderers and backstabbers and placing him at the center of the rain.

            “I will admit,” Petyr got in before Sansa could fish the solid proof out of her pocket. “That I did not kill any of the men in this building. Now,” he stood, crossing the floor towards a chest lying halfway between where he once sat and where Sansa currently stood frozen. He saw her body flinch as he approached. “I have a proposition.” Petyr rummaged through the chest until he found the wooden box stored near the back. He set it upon the chest’s edge, brushing off the line of dust, as he spoke with his back still turned. “I don’t suppose you know Cyvasse?”

            There was a pause. Petyr could imagine the look of confusion running across Sansa’s face. “No. What is it?”

            Petyr rose, bringing the box to a table, clearing that surface of wayward papers. “It’s not important. Do you know chess at least?”

            He heard her footsteps grow closer, curious at whatever scheme was running through his mind.

            Even Petyr was curious at his own actions. At the prospective _game_ that he was currently unboxing. At whether the idea that was itching at his mind was from the boredom of not being able to do much of anything with the water surround them; or whether there was something underlying and twisted beneath it.

            He felt her beside him, staring as his hands divided the pieces across the board. Petyr glanced over at Sansa, moving around towards his side of the table. He was about to arrange the pieces on their squares when he decided to ask: “Which set would you like?”

            Sansa looked as confused as part of Petyr felt. She moved to the chair opposite, glancing between the pieces and him. “White, please.” Petyr moved to give them to her. Sansa’s fingers scrambled to collect them before Petyr did. She was setting them up, staring intently at their positions – avoiding Petyr’s stare and the slight smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth.

            Smart wolf to not trust Petyr.

            He began arranging his own when he said, “I have a _feeling_ that there are questions you wish to ask me.” Sansa’s fingers froze with the bishop in mid-air. “Let’s strike a deal. Every time a piece is captured, the one who captured it gets to ask a question.” Petyr was setting up his back row of pieces. Rook, knight, bishop on one side. Bishop, knight, rook on the other. “The loser has to answer the question, and answer it truthfully.” Black queen upon her black square, king beside her. Oh if these pieces had faces, the king would have been staring in awe at the power of his queen. Would the queen have stared back?

            He looked up at Sansa finally. Her eyes snapped up from his pieces, from where Petyr’s fingers had been carefully arranging them to stand at the center of their squares.

            “Deal?”

            The table blocked most of Sansa’s body from his view, but Petyr had a feeling that her left hand was running over her pocket. Wondering at the truth in Petyr’s bet – wondering if he would actually answer anything truthfully.

            _Anything_ would be more than Petyr was willing to divulge. But to give Sansa the opportunity to _earn_ her answers, to give her the power to answer whatever without fear or consequence.

            Petyr only hoped she was prepared for his answers.

            “Almost.” Sansa tapped at the crown of the king. “What happens when someone gets checked? Or checkmated?”

            He stared at the contact of her finger and the piece. She was idly digging her fingernail between the spikes of the crown. Petyr could have sworn there was something _itching_ at his own scalp.

            “What do you propose?”

            Their eyes made contact again. “What do I…”

            Petyr moved to grab his forgotten glass. “I proposed the rule of capture. What is your rule for checking and checkmating?”

            Sansa thought on it. Oh, if she only knew the sorts of things Petyr would have proposed. As the loser’s king submitted to the will of the winner’s own pieces, so too would the loser to the winner–

            Petyr nearly choked on the drink. He attempted to pass it off as a slip of the liquid down the wrong side of his throat. She didn’t seem to notice.

            “A check is the same as a capture,” Sansa finally answered. “But, maybe you get to ask two questions? Or ask a question after the loser responds.”

            Petyr sat back down, nodding at her proposition. “And a checkmate?”

            He saw her throat bob as she gulped. The bottle he gave her earlier sat unopened beside the chessboard.

            “A checkmate means…” Sansa brought her eyes to stare directly into Petyr’s. A challenge. But her rising chest showed her uncertainty, her _fear_. “That the loser has to do _one_ thing that the winner asks.”

            Petyr felt something twinge in his chest.

            The candor, the bravery with which she said that couldn’t keep the smile from crooking Petyr’s lips. “Agreed.”

            Both of them leaned back in their chairs, as though a heavy something was pressing them down. The air was laden with the sound of rain and the thrumming of the blood in their veins.

            This was going to be far more interesting than Petyr had planned.

            “A practice game first, to warm up,” Petyr offered, motioning for Sansa to make the first move. She nodded, thinking for only a moment before advancing an ivory white pawn one space.

            Petyr countered her pawn with one of his own.

            They let the pounding rain consume them as they sat about the chessboard, taking turns and assessing one another. Petyr could tell Sansa had played before, perhaps as a titillating pastime up in the frozen North. But not something more than that. A round or two with her father or older brothers, and then the pieces would be swept away by those monstrous hounds Northerners thought made ideal pets. What a strange sort of people they were.

            However, Sansa was not very good, either. Not compared to Petyr, who often set up chess or Cyvasse or some other game as a distraction during business dealings. As a mask of what really went on when one player captured a piece, or another willingly let a piece go. Years of clandestine codes and maneuvers such that an entire shipment of goods could be sent to the right place at the right time – with nothing important spoken between two parties but the weather or local politics.

            It had been so long since Petyr took up chess for _fun_. As something meant to kill time than to negotiate shady dealings.

            Granted, this first game they played wasn’t entirely fun. It was an assessment of the other player. An understanding of how little Sansa knew when it came to sacrificing pieces in order to capture the opponent’s.

            She could have been heckling him, true. Petyr had done it often – and not always with positive results. But the casual way she moved her pieces, that genuine _tsk_ when she hadn’t accounted for the unassuming black knight.

            Even with the stakes rising in the next game, Petyr felt that Sansa needed as much of a distraction from the outside world. A brief glance to when the world hadn’t gone to utter shit.

            The best was when Petyr would accidentally position a piece in the way of a white bishop or rook, as if forgetting their location. The gleam in Sansa’s face when she saw she could capture a black piece, the twitch of her lips as she collected Petyr’s pawn or rook with the others on her side.

            Petyr wondered if it was worth it to lose the game. To see the definite smile creep across Sansa’s mouth and the unfurrowing of her brows. To submit to her own knights and the towering white queen.

            Perhaps, but not now.

            Petyr shifted his remaining bishop. “Check.”

            Sansa sat up straighter, biting her bottom lip as she strategized. Her eyes roved over the board, over all of her surviving pieces. Wondering how to protect her king, or to capture Petyr’s bishop. She couldn’t do the latter – Petyr made sure of the pawn that conveniently blocked the path of her last rook. No other white piece was in position to defeat the conniving bishop.

            A small rumble of _annoyance_ crept out of Sansa’s throat. She wasn’t checkmated, not yet. She could save herself with her own bishop, far trespassing within Petyr’s side of the board. All Sansa had to do was place it in front of her king, and the next round she would be running to keep her king safe.

            Sansa’s fingers hovered over each of her pieces, running through the scenarios in her mind. Trying to think ahead to what Petyr was going to do.

            She thought she found her way out with the queen.

            Petyr moved a rook, Sansa took the bishop.

            Leaving the white king exposed.

            The black pawn clacked in the square in front of the king. Blocking it from moving anywhere but right into the path of the black rook. Petyr leaned back with a smug. “Checkmate.”

            “No!” Sansa groaned, running through her pieces and possible scenarios. There were few moves left, all of which ended with Sansa’s king overthrown.

            She admitted defeat with a groan, leaning back in her chair. She was staring over the tops of the remaining pieces, towards Petyr, with a childish frown plastered over her face.

            Petyr laughed softly at her expression. “Please don’t be a sore loser. I can’t handle them.”

            He moved across the room to grab his half-empty bottle of water, pouring it into his glass. Swirls of leftover amber mixed with the water, winding around the edges of the glass until they disappeared. As he sat himself back down Petyr, saw that Sansa was eyeing the bottle he had given her downstairs. He was sure the seal was still intact.

            “It’s not poisoned,” he said, setting the glass beside the board. Petyr collected the captured white pieces. “But if you prefer something else to drink…”

            “I’m fine.” The fire in her motions and voice from the game were gone with the mention of water. Of the possibility of horrific death contained within that thin wall of plastic.

            Sansa was going to die from thirst just to spite the gods that unleased the rain.

            And she’d probably get away with it too. Petyr could see the ever-present tendrils of fear in her blue eyes, even when her mind was distracted with chess, with Petyr. As stubborn as all the other wolves.

            “Alright,” Petyr said, leaving the matter alone. He set the white pieces on Sansa’s side of the table, gathering the black pieces she managed to capture. Not as many as Petyr had, but enough to instill a sense of _confidence_ for the real game.

            They reset the pieces on the board, each keeping to their own side. A low rumbling echoed through the building. Petyr had almost forgotten about the rain during the practice game. Had forgotten about the existence of everything else– everything apart from the board and the pieces and the girl across from him.

            When Petyr saw that she was finished, he motioned for her to begin.

            She moved a pawn two spaces.

            Petyr did the same.

            Pieces moved across the tiles, dancing around their counterparts. Sansa was slower this time around, inspecting and re-inspecting what Petyr would do if her piece moved here or there or maybe over this way. Her fingers hovered, touching the tops before jumping away to another. Neither side wanted to have the first casualty.

            They sat in silence as they commanded their armies. Sansa kept her eyes on the board, not daring to glance at Petyr. He knew because he had been staring at the lines creasing her face as she strategized. Had been staring at the way she nibbled on her bottom lip, always the right side when she was deep in thought. Had been staring at where her free hand would go to check her pocket.

            Petyr’s curiosity got the best of him.

            Sansa didn’t take the pawn right away, not like how she did the first game. She kept fingers tight upon the knight’s head, taking note of which black pieces would be able to advance and attack should she take the pawn.

            Once she was satisfied, the white knight swooped in for the capture.

            She placed it by her, staring at it in disbelief. As if unsure that she had spilled first blood in a game she was far inferior at. Sansa hadn’t smiled at the acquisition as he had hoped she might.

            Instead she dug through her pocket, hiding the object fully in her palm.

            Better now than never, it seemed.

            Sansa showed Petyr the coin, the double-X facing him. A familiar token, but not desirable. Petyr stared at it, thinking on how much the inside X looked like dried blood. Remembered how much blood covered the coin when he found it. Unless… Unless this was the _other_ one.

            “What is this for?” she asked.

            He glanced back at her, into her hardened eyes.

            Somehow Petyr thought Sansa knew. Or if she did, she wanted to be sure. Wanted to know if Petyr himself knew the _severity_ of a coin like that. He wondered if somewhere North there existed dirty iron coins with a grey wolf etched on one side, as a means of payment.

            Probably not.

            Petyr inspected it again, trying to see through to the other side. “It’s a token for services to be rendered. A promise, from one man of loyalty to another.” Loyalty – neither party had them. But each was willing to lie to the other straight to the face to get what they wanted.

            Sansa turned it over so she was staring at the X. And Petyr was right – the back was blank.

            He tried to remember where he put the bloodied one. If that one was lying about as simply as this one was.

            “What sort of _service rendered_?”

            The sort that would turn the world upside down, Petyr thought. It just about did, actually. He said: “One question per piece. If you want to know, capture another pawn.”

            That seemed to irk Sansa. She gripped the coin tightly, leaving markings on her palm, before setting it beside the black pawn beside her. The X was face up – demanding to be seen, to be remembered.

            Were it that Petyr could _forget_.

            “My turn,” Petyr said, looking over the board. He made sure to spend time looking, contemplating the moves. Petyr hardly needed the amount of time that Sansa took on her turns, nor did he actually need the amount of time he did take. He wanted to make Sansa less embarrassed about taking five minutes per turn, to make her feel less incompetent and more coming to terms with how the game was played. Yes, that had to be it.

            But this wasn’t a game between businessmen. This wasn’t a business of the sort he was used to –not of an arrangement of pieces, rather a business of information. And Sansa was inexperienced in both fronts. There was a saying about that, wasn’t there? That inexperienced people were the most dangerous because they didn’t understand the consequences of their actions. That they were prone to be reckless.

            Something like that.

            Petyr turned their game back onto Sansa by capturing a white pawn.

            Her eyes narrowed, her teeth biting on the left side of her lip in nervous anticipation. She sat, staring at where the black knight stood, awaiting Petyr’s question.

            He decided on: “Where were you when the rain first fell?”

            Sansa flinched briefly, at some memory no doubt. At the sort of _luck_ that worked to keep her out of the rain. “I was in the Red Keep.”

            The Red Keep… Which had been the set of the mid-summer gala of pompous wealthy ladies and their ridiculous gossip. Knowing Cersei, she must have _insisted_ it be held outside, in that massive courtyard just inside the walls. Demanded it run smoothly regardless of any sudden change of weather.

            Was it morbid to think of someone deserving a terrible, painful death?

            A death that mirrored the _hundreds_ that someone had instigated.

            Petyr didn’t ask Sansa anymore, letting her take her turn. He didn’t fail to notice the certain _brevity_ within her own answer. Mimicking Petyr out of spite? Or merely avoiding whatever happened that evening?

            He wondered how well sound travelled within the Red Keep. If Sansa heard them drowning in their own blood and tearing at their skin.

            Several moves later, Sansa captured another black pawn.

            She didn’t raise the coin again, instead scratching at the X with a fingernail. “What _services_ did you render and to whom?”

            “That’s _two_ questions, sweetling.”

            Her fingernail stopped scratching for a moment, then continued. Sansa narrowed her eyes at him. “Fine. What services did you render?”

            Petyr took a sip of the water. Did she already know the _to whom_ and wanted clarification? Likely. But there was still the possibility that her quiet, lady life kept her away from dealings of people like _them_.

            “What services did I render, for _that_ coin, correct?”

            Sansa nodded slowly.

            “I believe I gave someone some information on how to succeed in this world. They were rather desperate for the information, I might add.”

            “Succeed at what?”

            Petyr waved a finger. “Another piece, another answer.”

            Sansa grumbled back, flinging the coin to collide with the pawns. She was antsy – so close to information, so close to possibly figuring out _what sort of man_ was the one that sat opposite her. And the way she displayed her annoyance so flagrantly was…endearing.

            Petyr focused on the board. There was a pesky white bishop encroaching close towards his side. It currently had no goal, waiting for something to foolishly stumble into its line of sight. But bishops were prone to being nasty, despite their colored movements. Petyr could capture it if he set a rook wayward. He wasn’t much a fan of rooks – the piece or the castle. The people that sat in them, especially.

            He set the rook a few spaces south of the bishop. Petyr knew Sansa was being more cautious this game, but the recklessness of wanting to learn _more_ than the measly crumbs Petyr offered – that was what he gambled on. Petyr always gambled on the instincts of humans being so _predictable_.

            So far, he was only wrong twice.

            The prospect of new information set the bishop on its predicted course. Sansa hardly set Petyr’s piece beside the other captured ones before she made to ask: “What was it that _that_ _person_ want to succeed in?”

            The slight inflection made Petyr almost certain Sansa knew what that X was. Who it was. After all, everyone in the North knew each other, some more closely than others.

            But not all of them were entirely _friendly_.

            “ _That person_ ,” he mimicked, “wanted more than what was promised him from birth. And thought that he was _deserving_ to take it by any means necessary.”

            That sounds familiar, doesn’t it? he thought, smiling at himself.

            There had been a small spark of understanding before, but know Sansa was trying to think why _that person_ would have been unhappy. Certainly the noble and honorable Eddard Stark would have done anything to appease those rowdy Northerners.

            Petyr wondered if that Wolf ever found out who started the rumors of rebellion.

            Sansa was still lost in piecing together those wayward threads when Petyr moved in to capture that reckless bishop. He set it down with a resounding _thump_ on the table. Sansa flinched, glancing over at him. He waved the bishop at her.

            “Did you notice anyone strange in the past few days?”

            The questions Petyr were asking must have been unusual for Sansa. She was determined to learn the _how_ and _why_ of an unsavory deal gone wrong. He wondered what sorts of questions Sansa thought someone like Petyr might have asked instead of these.

            “Yes, actually.” Petyr rose slightly forward, silently urging her to continue. Sansa glanced away for a second, the corner of her mouth arcing up. “In fact, there was this one _very strange_ man. He kidnapped me, shoved me inside an abandoned building and locked me up overnight.”

            Petyr’s fingers had been gripping the edge of the table in restraint of his anger – until he realized she was talking about _him_.

            “That wasn’t what I meant,” Petyr said, laughing softly.

            Sansa shrugged. “But it’s not false.”

            That was true. Oh if Petyr could enter Sansa’s mind and understand what sorts of thoughts were running wild and which were running sure. And how complex the threads were that she was beginning to string together.

            The next few moves felt lighter. Felt that crushing tension between them leaving.

            When Petyr snagged a white rook, Sansa silently cursed herself for it. He set it beside the bishop. “Have you noticed anyone strange in the past few days who is not currently in this building?”

            Those men downstairs were definitely strange. For a start, they were _dead_. But Petyr knew that – knew of them, knew where they were and where they currently resided. Not all of the _strange people_ Petyr were interested in met their fate here.

            Sansa stared past him at the window. She was taking a longer time to actually consider the question than Petyr would have imagined. King’s Landing was definitely _full_ of strange people, whether lying in back alleys or perched high in the Red Keep. And Sansa had only been in the city for two weeks, plus or minus a day. It was hard to say whether she would remember anyone particularly strange. Or whether any of them approached her.

            “Excluding _you_ , there hasn’t been anyone… _exceptionally_ strange,” she finally said. “Politicians are a strange sort, and I’ve met with a fair amount of those. None of them stood out.” Sansa paused, stroking lightly at her left forearm. “And there was…there was Joffrey. And his mother and family.” She was still staring out the window, certainly thinking back on two weeks of unsavory memories with the Lions. Petyr knew what sort of _hospitality_ they had. “They were all equally strange, but no one in particular stood out.”

            For your sake I hope you never met _him_ , Petyr thought.

            Petyr finished off the water, tapping fingers against the glass’ edge.

            He looked over the board, at the strategy that Sansa was employing this round. Half of her pieces had yet to be moved, all surrounding her king in an attempt to prevent another beheading. In an attempt to prevent Petyr from earning that right of checkmate.

            He maneuvered a rook to sit in the diagonal crosshairs of the white pawn standing guard of the white king. Sansa didn’t go for it, not this time. But she was running low on pieces that sat away from the king. Either Sansa take the _generous_ offering, or Petyr would need to barrage more offensively to break up the kingly cluster.

            She moved her remaining bishop to capture a pawn on the next turn. Petyr ignored it and moved his queen into enemy territory. The black queen wasn’t able to capturing any white pieces, not yet.

            Sansa grabbed the black pawn with her rook, leaving the bishop to guard in case Petyr got any ideas of revenge. Much better.

            She didn’t place it beside the others, spinning it between fingers as she thought of her next question.

            “Why is that man… Why did he die like that?”

            Ripped apart while alive? Muscles pumping underneath skin that was carefully and slowly removed? Screaming for the end to his long-endured suffering?

            “Because he was a warning.”

            Her eyes stayed on the pawn. “For what?”

            Petyr stared as her fingers twirled the piece one way, then the other, and back. That question hung heavy in the air as he debated answering it. She knew she was allowed one question per piece; he knew too. But Sansa’s strategy wasn’t going to keep her king alive for much longer. It was a dead man awaiting certain death.

            “For me.”

            The pawn stopped. Sansa’s gaze darted towards Petyr’s, her lips parting slightly in confusion. “For… What do you mean?”

            They stared at each other, unblinking. “He got in the way of someone else. Someone more ambitious.”

            She set the pawn atop the coin, covering the bloodied X. Perhaps she was done getting her answers. Not knowing the truth would have been kinder, wouldn’t it? Sansa Stark was already so close to the answers that Petyr were _sure_ she knew. The answers that would shed understanding over the past several weeks.

            The answers that would make her _detest_ Petyr.

            Maybe he would tell her after the rain. After everything else was behind them, after all those _loose ends_ were neatly dealt with.

            Assuming she hadn’t run away by then.

            Only a few rounds went by before Petyr captured the white knight. Sansa meanwhile seemed to close off. Her own commanding had gone sloppy, leaving the king behind in order to stave off the assault Petyr was currently enacting. The king would fall soon.

            Was she thinking on something – on these answers and what they meant? Or was she dreading the moment she lost?

            As he placed the knight by the others, he asked “If the rain stopped entirely, what would you do?”

            There was this miniscule shred of curiosity in Petyr’s mind that wondered if Sansa would say it. Say that she was alone and she might as well stay with Petyr. He didn’t know why he held onto that thread of possibility; on why it even existed in his thoughts.

            “Go back North,” she said quietly, scratching at the side of the chessboard with a nail.

            “To go back to your family?”

            Sansa didn’t answer, but she hadn’t needed to. It was writ plainly on her face.

            Petyr wondered that, too. Wondered if the rain managed to travel outside of King’s Landing, wrecking death upon unsuspecting travelers and cities. Granted, King’s Landing had been as unsuspecting of the water. But most of them _deserved_ it – those especially situated in their lofty towers of the Keep. The rest of the city was an unintended casualty. The rest of the city was meant to be _left alone_.

            The dark clouds outside still pelted the building. Petyr wished he had an idea on how long the rain was going to last. Whether it ever would.

            Far too many _what if_ s floated through Petyr’s mind.

            The chessboard _screeeeeched_ over the table, sending the unsuspecting pieces toppling over one another.

            Petyr watched as the black queen rolled towards the edge and stop.

            Both of them moved to right their pieces. Petyr fixed his queen first, then the remaining pawns and knight and rook. Sansa was doing the same, a pink flush spreading through her cheeks. She mumbled out a “Sorry,” not even looking at him.

            If she had been lying – in an attempt to better position her pieces and keep her king alive for long enough to at least _check_ Petyr – then she was good at it. But Sansa’s candor in everything she did made him certain that Sansa hadn’t meant to do it.

            It would have been a wise move. She could have bet on Petyr not remembering where his and her pieces were. Could have taken a gamble to rearrange hers.

            Sansa was placing her last piece: the white queen. Placing it on a white square. On a white square next to where it _should have_ been sitting on a black one.

            Petyr’s hand darted out to cover Sansa’s. She jumped.

            Petyr leaned in over the board, staring at her. Her fingers were warm, shaking slightly in his grip. He kept them there, not speaking until Sansa finally, slowly, raised her eyes to meet his. There wasn’t that tell-tale layer of embarrassment in her eyes – in her cheeks, yes. But the edges of her eyes contained _guilt_.

            He smirked. “That’s not where the piece was.”

            Sansa gulped. She hadn’t bothered to move her hand away, not even after Petyr’s thumb started to move over her skin, such small movements back and forth. He felt the heat coursing through the pads of his fingers, up his arm and down into the rest of his body. Sansa’s’ hand was still. Could she feel those minute movements over her skin? Did she feel the _heat_ that came from it?

            “Yes it was.”

            If it was, he thought, then my queen wouldn’t have a clear view to set you in checkmate next round.

            “Alright,” Petyr said. He let his thumb make one more languid pass over her hand before disengaging.

            He could still win. His own queen would have to wait a few turns longer. But Petyr wouldn’t deprive her for her glory in dethroning the king.

            Sansa moved; Petyr countered. Sansa captured a fourth pawn. Petyr observed the board and the new movements needed to get to that checkmate.

            “How did you know me?”

            Petyr didn’t look at her for the first few seconds. When he did he saw that spark of fire and curiosity – and fear. Always fear.

            He had hoped she might have forgotten.

            “You’re betrothed to Joffrey. Or, were. It would be impossible to _not_ know you.”

            “Is that why you saved me? To curry favor with him?”

            “No. He’s likely dead anyways. And no one deserved to die by the rain.” Sansa looked as though she had far more questions to ask – like why someone would run headfirst into the oncoming storm to save a complete stranger. So he stopped her by taking a turn.

            Of course she would have questions. Questions to things that Petyr was very unwilling to answer. She grew closer and closer to unearthing plots and motives.

            Perhaps it was time to stop before she grew curious for _just_ _the right_ answer.

            Another series of rounds went by, and Petyr set his queen in motion. Not to attack, not yet.

            Sansa wasn’t in check, but her next move could be her final.

            And it was.

            The black queen advanced.

            “Checkmate.”

            Sansa stared in disbelief. Her king was cornered within its own guard. If the king didn’t move, the queen would make short work of its death. If it did, that forgotten rook far on Petyr’s side would charge in for the kill.

            The game was over.

            Sansa was biting the left side of her lip again, re-analyzing the board. Trying to see if maybe Petyr was wrong. If maybe there was a secret piece that could save her king. There wasn’t.

            She lifted the white crown and handed it to Petyr.

            Her eyes remained on the hole where it once stood. On that sheltered space that led the king to its own death.

            Petyr didn’t take the king, not yet. Instead his hand tapped at the edge of the board, staring at those delicate fingers trembling from the loss. Trembling at the knowledge that her own bravery led her to fall victim to the wit of the man before her. Trembling at the knowledge that she just gave him free reign to do one anything.

            He brought his free hand beneath hers, palm facing the king. Sansa dropped it. The weight of the king was satisfying in his hand. Petyr set it besides the other white pieces.

            “I want you to drink that bottle.”

            Sansa’s head jerked up and back. Shocked at the _boring_ task. She was well aware of the _power_ that she created in a checkmate – the resigned ability to do one thing, one anything, of the winner.

            Perhaps what she _thought_ Petyr was going to ask was justified. Oh, it definitely was, and a multitude of possibilities definitely crossed his mind.

            He couldn’t help the lifting of his lips as he took in her uncertain glare. “There are enough dead bodies in here as it is,” he explained, leaning his head on his hand. “If it takes winning a game of chess to keep you from dying of thirst, then so be it.” Petyr motioned to the bottle with his chin. “Drink up.”

            There was still the underlying fear of the water written on Sansa’s face. Petyr understood – she witnessed so many people dead and dying from the water. At how it tore through skin and muscle.

            He had crept into Ros’ room earlier, on his way up to the storage, and saw that Sansa at least drank some of the juice. Petyr was right about it then – that the water itself was what was terrifying her.

            She would have to get over the fear if she planned to return home.

            The bottle _crack_ ed open. Sansa stared at the opening, not moving it any closer.

            Would it have been kinder to impose something else?

            No.

            This was the kindest thing Petyr could force her to complete. Perhaps she would still have an unwavering fear of water even after drinking. Better than an unwavering fear of him; of the man that she was stuck with until the rain stopped.

            And possible stuck with for much longer.

            Slowly Sansa brought it to her lips. Her eyes closed, as if she was _certain_ the water would kill her from the inside out. Mentally preparing herself for death.

            She drank.

            Petyr couldn’t help but stare - from those lips that pulled the water in even gulps, and the long, pale throat that bobbed greedily for more.

            Despite her fears, Sansa finished the whole bottle.

            Petyr smiled at her, as though she had just accomplished something huge. As if she had just gotten over a fear of heights or public speaking. “Not so terrible.”

            She licked away a wayward drop falling from her lips, setting the bottle down.

            Something overtook Petyr then. Something that had been winding a thread throughout him and over his mind. It was a possible _foolish_ something.

            He glanced at the coin, still hidden under the pawn. No, not hidden – defeated. Held captive by a piece that most would deem _useless_.

            Oh yes. It was _definitely_ a foolish something.

            Petyr rose, grabbing the black queen from its winning position. He shortened the gap between him and Sansa.

            “I can bring you home.”

            Sansa – who had been staring blankly at the empty bottle – finally acknowledge that Petyr wasn’t sitting across from her, but was now a step away, standing above her. She shrunk back into the chair.

            “What do you want?”

            _Want_  - the _right_ line of questioning. None of these _how_ and _what about the rain_. Sansa seemed as easily able to read Petyr as he her.

            “There’s something that needs to be dealt with here. The reason for those dead men, for my being stuck here. For the rain.” Her eyes widened slightly. “Help me take care of them, and I’ll bring you back to Winterfell. Bring you back to your family.”

            Sansa stared at Petyr, _into_ him, with the same sort of cold, calculating gaze that he saw in himself. He could see the distrust, the uncertainty within her. Layers upon layers of them. But also the prospect of _answers_ and understanding of what was going on. And that ever-present desire to go home.

            Petyr set the queen down beside the pawn. The _clack_ against the coin echoed in the gap between them.

            Sansa sat forward.

            “Alright.”


	7. make hay while sun shines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Second to last chapter! I've been waiting to write this chapter for a long time, and I think it came out pretty well, if a bit long :)  
> As always: lots of love to you, my readers. Enjoy!]

 

            Sansa awoke to pale grey light filtering in between the cracks of the curtains. Days blended into nights. The only difference was the depth of the grey that blanketed the outside world; that seeped indoors. A darkness of clouds that always covered the city above, with a darkness of death shrouding the streets below.

            The rain was there, too. Always there. Always on the lookout above King’s Landing for any unwashed civilians that were deserving of that final _cleanse_ it brought. It had begun to slow its hunt as time wore on. Time didn’t even have meaning anymore. What was an hour, a day, a week? All that existed was either the time when the rain was pouring mercilessly against that stone building, walls and roof fighting back against the storm. Or the time when the rain was waiting, patiently – biding its time.

            For those endless days that merged into one, nothing existed in Sansa’s world but that incessant rain. That, and Petyr.

            Petyr was a mystery as formless as the grey clouds that were floating beyond the crack of the curtains. He had promised answers, and he gave a series of them to Sansa. Their chess games continued, though less often they played for answers than they played in an attempt for Petyr to teach Sansa the techniques. He had to have been as _bored_ as she was, with far little to do cooped inside. And once Sansa began to understand the methods of expecting the opponent’s moves and catching patterns of piece arrangements, Petyr stopped their question-and-answer game entirely. Which only made Sansa want to test out her skills and discover what truly made Petyr Baelish tick.

            That was one of the things she found out. His last name. And his place of birth – a small village east of the Vale of Arryn, where her aunt lived. Neither answers rang any bells in her mind, from whispered words either here or in the North. He seemed, for all Sansa knew, to be a businessman firmly seated in King’s Landing, interested in getting people drunk and laid.

            He joked on that plenty during their days together. On the lack of _activities_ to be done in the Mockingbird that weren’t a combination of getting drunk, dancing like a fool, or engaging in sex. Sansa could only imagine how one would manage to combine all three proclivities into one. Petyr made a pass at it. At implying that if the two of them wanted to entertain that trinity to pass the time as was _intended_ , there was plenty of alcohol for it.

            Sansa had to fight against the blush and the nerves that plastered her face, keeping her eyes on anything else. She could hear the smile on his mouth though she didn’t see it.

            They had moved to the bar shortly afterwards, as though that comment never passed Petyr’s lips. He did that just as often: make comments or suggestions, even just a _look_ , to rile Sansa. To make Sansa feel that strange tightness in her stomach. Then switch topics with a quick finesse, leaving those comments mixed in the confused swirls of her mind of _who_ he was and _what_ he wanted.

            She knew some of both, but not all.

            Drinks were had – she had watered-down juice and him more of that amber he loved, though his personal stores were running low.

            “There’s something I want to show you,” Petyr had said, moving to dim the main lights. Sansa stared upwards at the starry sky in anticipation. With them off, the smaller twinkles embedded in the ceiling made it feel less like they were inside. Feel less like the walls closed in about her. Instead, Sansa and Petyr were out atop a hill, far from the city, gazing at the endless expanse of their universe. Sansa looked across the infinite sky mirrored all around her. At the clusters of stars set into constellations. As though the universe itself had crashed onto the world and Sansa was caught adrift in the flotsam of earth and stars.

            It had been so long since Sansa experienced the beauty of the night sky. Not since the North – where light pollution was minimal and wilderness actually existed. Not like here in the South. Here, if Sansa was lucky, she could make out the North Star pointing her to Winterfell. Towards home.

            _I can bring you home_ , he said.

            Was this what he meant? Bring her the _illusion_ of home? This momentary peace of being home: forgetting about the rain and King’s Landing and Joffrey and the rebellion.

            Pretend that she was gazing at the endless skies of Winterfell with her family beside her. Where the unknown future wasn’t a freighting idea, but something full of excitement. Picturing those stories of women exploring the vastness of the world; of women falling madly in love with their knight in white armor; of women existing as their own knights, or as goddesses and queens and rulers of their own selves.

            Those women that Sansa once wanted to be. To revel in their freedom and self-assurance.

            She hated them. Hated that they had no consequences for their actions, that their lives were _perfect_.

            Sansa wasn’t sure what her life was now, since the rain.

            But gazing into the wonder of the unknown, Sansa had been smiling. Forgetting her hatred of those stories, of the crooked path that led her here. Staring at an illusion of the sky reflecting down onto earth through the lights and mirrors.

            She brought her smile and her eyes down back into reality. And she saw Petyr’s.

            The darkness in his eyes made Sansa question the _seriousness_ of his offer to take her home. Not question the fact that she _agreed_ to his offer, with only a few heartbeats of consideration. Not question the fact that she agreed to entrust her journey of hundreds of miles through the unknown to a near-stranger.

            No. Sansa questioned the underlying motives that lay in Petyr’s mind, lying entwined with the other impossible plots that were certainly brewing.

            Sansa wasn’t sure she would ever be able to understand him.

            He continued to stare at her through the dim light of the club, the stars falling upon their hair and skin, barely illuminating their faces. Sansa saw something _far deeper_ within Petyr than the stars reflected around them.

            She didn’t have a name for it then. Even now, Sansa was confused.

            She was staring at him now, at his sleeping form. They were situated in the office, Sansa on the couch and him at his desk. His face was set in the crook of an arm, body hunched over.

            He didn’t have to do that, she knew – keep her company. Even if they more often than not simply sat in the same room, not talking. It was the fear of being alone, perhaps. At the small reminder that they weren’t the last person on earth, heavily considering the nagging itch to go outside and embrace the rain.

            He hadn’t planned to, either. That first night before Sansa intruded and _demanded_ answers, Petyr purposefully separated them. Out of politeness, Sansa imagined. Out of a sense of _safety_ that he wished to instill within her mind. Small motions: leaving her to change, letting her choose to follow him upstairs, separating them for the night. Moving aside to allow Sansa the _choice_ to enter his private rooms.

            Yet other small motions _conflicted_ with that sense of safety he alluded to. Those accidental collisions of fingers; all those small swipes of his thumb over her skin. Small movements that mirrored throughout her own body, as though they couldn’t be contained to just her hand or arm. And every single glance he fixed on her. His eyes gazing across her skin, and even _through_ it. To see the mind that moved that body and the hands and the lips that Petyr always lingered on. When she wasn’t looking. When she _was_ looking.

            As though Sansa was his own illusion of the endless night sky flickering with hundreds of lights, stretching on forever.

            She thought of asking him in one of their later rounds of chess, before he stopped the game. Sansa had made that attempt in their first – _how did you know me?_ Petyr’s answers seemed so practiced. Not as something that he had answered before (when had something like this ever happened in the history of Westeros? Of the world?), but as a precaution that Sansa would eventually be _smart enough_ to question his motives. There wasn’t the life in his tone, the realness that she expected. The sort of explanations that roved over his face were neatly trimmed out of the words he spoke.

            Lies lies _lies_. That’s what the voice was always telling her, wasn’t it? Don’t trust this man. Don’t let him near. He has done terrible things and will continue to do terrible things. Run away. Run away far and far and never look back.

            Sansa didn’t.

            Petyr stirred. She flicked her attention to the radio sitting opposite her in the room. Sansa hadn’t turned the radio on since that first night. She wanted to keep it on – to listen for any changes, to listen to the voice that reminded Sansa to be _afraid_. Petyr had turned it off sometime after she dozed off after chess. Something about the radio irked him.

            He was just at the edge of her vision, and Sansa could make out his movements. Petyr stretched, joints cracking from what Sansa was sure was hardly a comfortable sleep. They never had a comfortable sleep in all their days. It was the fear that always crept in and whispered words of death, whether awake or asleep.

            Sansa didn’t need to break her gaze from the radio to know that Petyr’s was focused on her. It always was. She tucked her blanket higher up her neck until only her head was free. Cold – it was cold in the room. That had to be it.

            “The rain’s stopped,” he broke the silence. The silence. Nothing whispered in the room since Sansa awoke, and she struggled to think on whether the rain had been echoing when she finally drifted to sleep a few hours ago.

            Sansa sat upright and turned to stare through the crack in the curtains. It was still the pale grey of morning. The clouds were still there, high above the city. But they were light puffs, growing further apart. Sansa walked to the window, the blanket falling over her shoulders and dragging as she moved, one hand holding it at her neck. She parted one of the curtains.

            She wanted to cry.

            Through the breaking wisps amongst the grey, Sansa spied the faintest streaks of blue.

            She hadn’t seen such a beautiful sky in her life.

            Sansa turned to Petyr, drawing the curtain farther. As if showing him that _Look, the world might not be as over as we thought. That we weathered the storm and made it._

            The _ecstatic_ excitement that Sansa felt was stretching her own lips wasn’t present on his. She couldn’t understand why.

            “This is good, isn’t it?” she asked. It had been the best moment of her recent life for the five seconds before she turned around. Sansa spied the thin press of his mouth and wondered how this _couldn’t_ be good.

            “Yes and no,” he answered. Petyr sifted fingers through his hair in an attempt to comb the mess. She stared at the stubble coating his jaw, at how sharply the bone framed his face.

            “How is it ‘no’?”

            Petyr was staring out the window. Sansa saw the thoughts running through his mind, saw those threads coming back to life with the rain gone – if at least momentarily. The rain had been lessening as the days grew on, the time between rainfalls lengthening. Sansa knew it meant the rain was on its decline. It had feasted and gorged – it had _enough_ of King’s Landing. Of the world.

            Perhaps not today, but soon.

            Petyr stood. He walked towards Sansa, towards the window and stared through the condensation out into King’s Landing. Through it all his eyes looked distant. Looked as though his body was here, but his mind was firmly lost within his own machinations.

            When he finally returned to his body and shifted towards Sansa, she realized she had been staring at him.

            Petyr placed his hands on her blanketed shoulders. His eyes stared through hers – the deep moss of the earth after a heavy rainstorm. There was nothing of the wisps of darkness that often clouded his gaze. Nothing but the eyes of a cold, calculating mind.

            His hands hadn’t moved from their perch. Hadn’t even made the attempt at subtle movements. Petyr smiled with his mouth only, and Sansa felt a weight in her stomach clang about in worry. In fear.

            Something was wrong.

            Still, Petyr smiled. “Get ready, sweetling. We’ll be heading out soon.”

* * *

            This was the time to flee. That voice was telling Sansa how _easy_ it would be to leave Petyr through the streets of the city. To make it out of the narrow paths that crisscrossed throughout the heart of King’s Landing and out into the larger streets. To find a car and drive north and north and north. Drive back home. Drive to safety.

            She could do it. Petyr was not formally obligated to help her, to take her back to Winterfell.

            Would he catch on to the scheme that Sansa was plotting as they wove their way through the streets? As Sansa inventoried the alleys and the obstacles, figuring out which path would lead her away from downtown and not towards the Sept.

            Would he _let_ her go?

            Petyr hadn’t made moves to stop Sansa before. Not when she saw the bodies. Not when he left her alone, time and again, with nothing stopping her from heading to the door and walking out. Nothing but the voice in her head telling her _leave_ – and another telling her _stay_.

            There was also wanting to learn of the resolution of Petyr’s own plans. He alluded to answers, as he always had. The method of _dealing with_ the problem in King’s landing, and the method of taking Sansa back home – so many vague waves of hands and explanations meant for a later time. Was that his own way of saying that Sansa should leave now before things got _worse_?

            Somehow, nothing seemed worse than the end of the world.

            Regardless of any sort of _plans_ made and agreed to, they would have had to leave the safety of the Mockingbird. Not permanently – but their rations of food and water were growing smaller as the hours wound by. Sansa barely nibbled at the supplies that Petyr brought her. She hadn’t needed to _lose_ again for rations to get ingested. Yet she couldn’t deny the creep of blush that made its unsightly appearance anytime she drank water. A reminder that, despite what Sansa was _sure_ of about Petyr (even back then), that Petyr instead wanted to keep her _alive_.

            Sansa ate because she had a reason to. To go back to Winterfell. It was always her plan in the end. What else did Sansa have to look forward to? _Where_ else would Sansa be welcomed, even with the world turning its last days? She wouldn’t make it, but she would try.

            Hearing Petyr say that he would help her – that he would make sure she at least touched the soil of the North again – sparked the _hope_ that maybe her plan wasn’t a complete fool’s errand. And at least she wouldn’t be alone for that long, lonely journey.

            “Ready?”

            Petyr’s words brought Sansa back from her thoughts. She turned from staring out the front door to look at him. And almost laughed.

            It was Sansa’s idea, after all. She got it from Arya. When her sister had left her jacket at home despite their mother’s _persistence_ that it was going to rain with nary a cloud in sight. And when it had, Arya got a stern talking to.

            So the next time Arya left without bringing her jacket in a claim of _I forgot_ , she fashioned her own with a garbage bag. A hole for the head and two for the arms, slung over like a dress. Arya said it was just as warm and dry and far less cumbersome when she went gallivanting across fields and over stones. She got another stern talking to, though not without an appreciation of her _ingenuity_ from their father.

            Sansa has since improved on the design that Arya created. She also again cursed Southron folks not having proper winter attire stuffed somewhere at the back of closets. A single coat would be asking too much.

            For now, Sansa’s work would have to do. Not quite a _proper_ set of jacket and pants, but both more practical and waterproof than punching holes through the plastic. Sansa had more than enough spare linens and garbage bags and free time to make the clothes comfortable yet durable. She even went so far to add pockets.

            Jacket (with a hood), pants (with pockets), and booties (with grips on the soles) to go over shoes. Fashionable summer collection from Sansa Stark, limited edition.

            A flash of memory passed through Sansa’s eyes. Holding the fabric to measure the length of his arms, his torso, his legs. She insisted she could finish the clothing without the need to remeasure or check preliminary patterns.

            Finally seeing Petyr fully dressed in _that_ sort of thing – going from those fine silk shirts and dress pants and shoes – the memory fell away and Sansa couldn’t stifle the laugh any longer.

            Petyr shot her a cheeky grin. He gave himself a once over across his _fashionable attire_ before motioning to her own. “Let me know when the next line of garbage clothes arrives. I’ll make sure to buy one of everything.”

            Sansa wiped a tear away. “Let’s hope there isn’t. But if so, the next one will cover that mouth so I won’t have to listen to you anymore.”

            He moved to grab his bag of supplies, but Sansa still saw the grin spreading. And she kept smiling, too.

            This sort of _familiarity_ with someone in King’s Landing was new for Sansa. New, but not unwelcomed. There wasn’t a specific moment it appeared – it was a growth, from when he saved her to now. A series of jabs and questions, and even those silences spent in comfortable nearness to one another. She missed having a semblance of a _friend_. Even if whatever this was – this strange, found relationship between Petyr and her – was something Sansa still wasn’t sure she would consider a friendship. Perhaps she was so devoid of company she had forgotten what it felt like.

            This strange relationship was quieting the voices in her head.

            Petyr approached, adjusting the bag over his shoulder. Sansa had one, too. Water and food for the day, and other items: an unclaimed umbrella found in a utility closet, spare bags for extra storage, empty bottles for possible filling, spare garbage bags and tape for makeshift repairs. And other _just in case_ things that Petyr added to his.

            They didn’t know what to expect. From the rain and the city and the people, dead or alive. A week stuck inside while the world outside moved on.

            For all they knew, this could be a suicide.

            “Ready,” Sansa finally answered, stepping through the door.

            The smell hit her first. The stench, the rotting flesh clinging to the cobblestones and walls. Flashes of the bodies in the Keep and the body behind the locked door. She felt her stomach churn, but she held herself steady. Sansa would not be weak, not now.

            “Breathe through your mouth,” Petyr instructed from behind her as he moved to lock the doors. She had been told that before, and she _hated_ it. The idea of particles of the dead floating into her mouth, coating her tongue, sticking along the walls of her throat and lungs. They would have entered regardless if Sansa breathed through her mouth or nose. It just felt more _wrong_ this way. But through the mouth helped, if only a fraction.

            They walked out from under the setback and onto the streets. Sansa imagined she might have travelled down this road before the rain. Might have passed by the Mockingbird on her travels through the city. Might have passed Petyr as he stared over the city from his perch high above.

            Sansa could see the spire of Baelor’s Sept peeking above the buildings. The heart of King’s Landing. And in the other direction, towering upon its hill, was the Red Keep. West and east, all the directions the citizens needed to know to make their way through the maze of the city.

            Thankfully, Petyr pulled out a Traveller’s Guide to King’s Landing – some sort of foldable brochure detailing the landmarks of the city on one side and a map on the other. Petyr explained how _customers_ were wont to losing items in their alcohol- and hormone-induced frenzies. Maps were the least trivial of items. Sansa had to wonder if those customers actually lost valuable goods or if they were sneakily collected out of pockets.

            Petyr unfolded the map and aligned it with the locations of the Sept and Keep. One of his slender fingers pointed at their position. As Sansa poured over the intersecting lines, she was surprised how far she managed to wander on her escape from the Keep.

            Her eyes travelled south of the Sept. Somewhere there was Joffrey’s apartments. She couldn’t recall the name or number, but Sansa made note of the general path through streets to get there.

            They could be alive, too.

            Why did Sansa care? They _hated_ her. Hated what she represented – the North, the rebellion. The tentative hold the Lions held over Westeros after the short-lived rule of the Stag who had conveniently passed away just after claiming the throne.

            Despite the words and the marks and the numerous _threats_ – none of them deserved to die.

            Sansa thought to at least check. That’s what a good person would do. To let them know that they weren’t alone, either. That the world still had a chance.

            If only she had the courage to go.

            “The closest market is here,” Petyr was explaining. Sansa’s eyes moved back towards where his fingernail grazed over the paper. It was only a few blocks away, away from the Sept. They had gone through their plan before leaving: food and supplies first, then explore the damage and look for signs. It all felt so different when Petyr was explaining it indoors. When the reality, the _memories_ , of the rain were still a thing out of reach.

            They were outside now. The flurry in her stomach was a never-ending buzz. They had nowhere else to go but forward.

            “Water and food first,” Sansa confirmed.

            Petyr nodded. “Remember to check the skies,” he added as he folded the map back into its neat square. That was something he droned on about this morning – that the clouds were purposefully deceptive. The sliver of blue was baiting people outdoors, to believe that the storm was over and they were safe.

            And here they were. Outside. Baited on the illusion of safety.

            When he set the map back into a pocket, Sansa ventured to ask again: “And then what?”

            He smiled with that not-quite-smile. Like the one from this morning. “Then we look for his signs.”

            As cryptic as ever. Sansa had admittedly been trying to pry into the jumble of threads within Petyr’s mind. She had thought – had hoped – that his announcement of returning her home and dealing with the problem meant an inclusion of Sansa into his plans. All she was given were the faintest of breadcrumbs. Insignificant morsels for a person days’ starved and roving mad. Sansa was mad with the _curiosity_ of what Petyr had planned. For her, for the person that caused all this.

            She was sure it was revenge. Why else camp out in the middle of the city and wait for the rain if not that?

            And there was always the issue of the _dead bodies_. The murders Petyr insisted he hadn’t committed. But he had, didn’t he? They were a _warning_ for him. They wouldn’t have died if Petyr had done what he had promised, what he had sworn with the token.

            Blood was on Petyr’s hands as much as he might have denied it.

            The coin was a reminder of the old North, from before industry and technology. From the olden days when a man’s word was a blood oath. An iron coin stamped with the house sigil was a physical manifestation of the promise that would be carried out. Coins like those were just as valuable as ingots of gold. Sansa had seen some in her father’s stud, relics of their ancestors across the North. She sifted through the collection of them once – but the X wasn’t among the ones in Winterfell.

            A hand gripped Sansa’s arm. It jerked her out of her thoughts. Her feet, while following the motions of Petyr’s, had been veering towards a puddle.

            “Watch your steps,” he cautioned. Sansa only blinked at him. She looked at the puddle. It hardly _looked_ a problem, and the bag booties would have kept her feet dry.

            But it could have been deeper. Dragging her leg beneath, snapping her bones. Seeping through unknown seems within the bags and the clothes and finally reaching her skin.

            She shivered. “Sorry.”

            “It’s alright. Just be careful.” He let her arm go, taking a few steps forward. Petyr waited for her, for her mind to catch up with her body and start to move again.

            The softer of the voices in her head said: He would have let you slip into the hole if he didn’t care.

            He shouldn’t be trusted, harked the other.

            Sansa caught up with Petyr, and they continued.

            She tried her best to keep her mind unoccupied. But there was little in the world to occupy herself with. The narrow road, the high walls. The dead bodies dissolved into unrecognizable lumps of hair and muscle and bone. Sansa avoided those as best as she could.

            There wasn’t much else. The once-noisy streets were silent. On her first venture through there was at least the lapping of the ocean beside the Red Keep to push her down into the city. And the echoing of car alarms in the distance, the metallic screams dimming as she travelled into the throng of clustered streets.

            And there were animals, too. Those stray dogs nipping at corpses. Had the water finally affected them?

            She passed an unrecognizable lump of matted fur atop a small, body corpse. Yes – the rain affected _everything_.

            They were approaching the turn towards the market when they heard it.

            Heard them.

            Petyr threw his arm before Sansa, warning her from moving forward. They were only steps away from the corner.

            Whoever they were, they were terribly angry. Any sound aside from her and Petyr’s voices sounded so _foreign_. The new noise sounded so loud. And there was more than one of them.

            Sansa heard her heart beating in her ears, felt her breath coming out faster.

            Petyr crept towards the edge of the building, and Sansa had an urge to pull him back. To yell at him to stop.

            He didn’t make it far before something flew past them.

            Sansa screamed.

            It was a man. He was clambering up from the stones, drips of water clinging to his exposed arms and face. He didn’t seem to notice it at first – the way the water was slowly eating into his skin. At the blood seeping through the holes. At the tinge of green that was spreading across half of his face.

            His fingers clawed at his spoiling green cheek. Itching to get the water out. Four ragged lines tore away, again and again as his fingers kept digging deeper.

            Sansa clutched her hands over her mouth. As much as she wanted to look away – she couldn’t.

            The man noticed them then. He crouched down, spewing unfamiliar swears as he approached Sansa. His fingers kept peeling away layer after layer of _red_. The other arm stretched towards her.

            Someone else charged at the man.

            They grappled arms, pushing and pulling at the other. The second man was smaller, wearing a thick coat, but his face was fully exposed. The bloodied man was trying to claw at the other’s face. He was screaming. Spitting and swearing and trying to _infect_ the other.

            He hadn’t paid attention to his feet.

            The first man’s foot lodged into a puddle – one similar to the one Sansa nearly fell into. He screamed, trying to pull his leg free. He finally managed, with a resounding _crack_. He moved to stand, to prepare for another fight. But his foot couldn’t support his weight and he crumpled beneath the lame leg.

            There was so much blood and skin falling off of him.

            The man in the coat stared, several steps away, eyeing whether or not the fallen man would charge again. But he was so preoccupied with his face, his arms, his foot. The screams of pain echoed off the walls and fell directly into Sansa’s ears. She had the sudden urge to weep for this unknown man. She didn’t.

            The other man, finally satisfied with the _damage_ he had dealt, stalked back the way they had come from. He bent to grab a bag that had fallen before continuing.

            Sansa heard the unmistakable _crunch_ of thin plastic in the bag.

            Water.

            Those men fought over a small bag of water. Two days’ worth, if that.

            One man watched as another clawed at his own face. One man watched as he _infected_ the other man – as the rainwater crept through skin and ate at him from the inside as his fingers dug deeper and deeper. And then he walked away.

            This was what the end of the world meant.

            Survival.

            _Murdering others_ to save yourself for another day or two.

            As Sansa watched the dying man’s hands slow down – as his screams quieted to sobs and pleas for _help_ from her – she imagined herself in that man’s shoes. Struggling to stay alive on her own. Fighting for a bottle of water.

            She wouldn’t have lasted a day on her own.

            Would she last a day even with Petyr?

            They stood there in a terrified transfixion of the man as his life slowly left his body. At last, the energy to claw at skin, to murmur words, finally stopped.

            The arm that had moved to _shield_ Sansa was now firmly encircling her shoulders in _comfort_. She hadn’t noticed Petyr move, hadn’t felt his presence just beside her. The warmth emanating from his body was soothing the fear and sadness from looking at a man writhe himself to death.

            Still, neither of them moved. All that moved was the blood coursing from gashes in the dead man’s flesh.

            Sansa broke the contact. She took a step, two, before turning around to stare in Petyr’s direction. At his chest. Something was keeping her from looking directly at him.

            “What now?” came her voice, a quiet thing. Whatever reservations Sansa had had about this entire _plan_ were coming back tenfold. An endless flurry of _what if_ s and voices filling her mind. Was this why Petyr kept so secretive about everything? Because he knew the sort of nature that dwelled within humans – the sort of terror and paranoia that was unleashed at the prospect of living for one more day?

            Or was there something more?

            Petyr slowly closed the gap, keeping a break between them. Sansa stared at the rain clothes she sewed for him. At the imitation of a bird upon his breast pocket.

            “We should find somewhere else to search,” he answered.

            Sansa was trying to control her breathing. She had long gotten used to the smell of death that Sansa couldn’t remember when she stopped breathing through her mouth. “They would all be like that, wouldn’t they?”

            Petyr didn’t answer immediately. She saw him look over his shoulder, past the corner where the market was. Where – under the din of voices and blood colliding in her mind – Sansa heard the whispers of shouting and running.

            Were the two of them foolish enough to go battling for supplies? To put all notions of human decency behind them. To forgo all a lady’s kindnesses and do what was necessary – even if it meant to _kill_ – for a measly bottle of water or tin of canned meat?

            Or more appropriately: how _desperate_ were they?

            Thirst clawed at her throat. Sansa was too afraid to reveal the water bottle in her bag, even if no one was around.

            A tiny, foolish voice whispered ideas in her mind.

            “Can I see the map?”

            Petyr looked back at her. She saw the lines of tension around his mouth and eyes. There was fear there, too. He moved away from the street’s edge, further down from where they came from, as he fished in his pocket. Sansa followed, grabbing the map as they backtracked. She nearly dropped it trying to unfurl the page.

            “There’s a smaller market hereabouts,” Sansa pointed. There were probably tens of markets, _hundreds_ of them, from small closet-sized stores to the larger chains, like the one they were walking away from. She couldn’t be sure, but if the large shops were ransacked because of their size, then perhaps there was a chance for smaller, out-of-the way ones. Ones that were hard to identify. She could only hope.

            Sansa brought up her theory. Petyr gazed between where she pointed on the map and back towards the street behind them. “It’s possible,” he agreed.

            They passed a decomposing body lying in the supposed shelter of a doorway. It did nothing to quench the hunger of the rain that poured and poured. The door, however, was slightly ajar.

            A terrible thought crept amongst the others in Sansa’s mind. “What if,” she began, debating even voicing it aloud. It was stupid – she already knew that. But it was _something_. “What if we went through people’s houses? They must have water stored and-”

            “No.”

            She hadn’t even finished. Of course it was foolish. There could be _people_ in their apartments. Waiting. Fingers twitching to attack at intruders.

            Or they were already dead. A cesspit of death awaiting unsuspecting trespassers, awaiting fresh meat for infection.

            Nothing was certain anymore. That was the worst of it – that even the most carefully-laid plans could backfire from unsuspected possibilities. Even Sansa’s idea of going to a smaller market was rife with holes. They were just as likely to actually find supplies there as they were to die.

            So they kept walking in silence. Sansa fingers crinkled the edges of the map as she navigated them through the streets. The streets were starting to become familiar as the two of them travelled southwards from the Sept.

            Panic swept through Sansa’s stomach. Fear. There were a handful of living people passing them by, all alone. Each of them wore mismatched layers of clothes. Each of them clutched a backpack or duffel close to their chests as they walked. Sansa couldn’t help but grip tightly to her own.

            The two of them didn’t come off as a _threat_ , Sansa thought. She didn’t want to imagine what other survivors would do to grab at the supplies they carried. Or the makeshift clothes they wore. Staying dry was just as necessary as staying hydrated and fed.

            It wasn’t being a threat. It was the _desperation_ of the other person. Of one person against two, even if the other survivor was small and tired and dying. If attacking Sansa and Petyr meant the possibility of living for another day, they would do it. People would kill, _have_ killed.

            _Survivor_ … That word clung within Sansa’s mind. That’s what she was now. A survivor of the end of the world.

            Someone ran past them. Coming from the other direction, Sansa saw the _fear_ in their eyes as they fumbled down the narrow street, farther and farther away.

            Sansa froze.

            There was a rumble; crashes. Scraping of metal against stone.

            And then it was darting down the cramped road. Straight for them.

            The wheels made quick work of a rain-soaked body. Its head exploded under the weight.

            Sansa grabbed at Petyr and Petyr grabbed at Sansa. They darted to the nearest doorway, set maybe a foot in from the street. Their bodies pressed against the door, flattening, shrinking themselves as small as possible.

            The van tore chunks of stone from the walls, ripping metal signs and lights off as it bounced from one side of the narrow street to the other. It barely fit – inches of clearance on either side. The sideview mirrors were dangling by wires, clanging along behind.

            The rumble of the vehicle grew louder and louder. Sansa felt the motor echoing through her chest.

            The flopping mirror whipped at her back as the van drove past. She felt the jagged corner of it tear at the jacket and clothes underneath. Sansa wasn’t sure if it was sweat or blood that beaded down her spine.

            It charged forward, paying no attention to the destruction it left in its wake.

            Sansa wondered where and how and _why_ someone would try and shove a van down these narrow streets. If it kept going straight it would eventually reach the Sept. Assuming the vehicle hadn’t met enough concrete and metal by then.

            She watched it disappear down the crooked street. The stinging registered in her brain. Sansa swore, bending over and trying to asses the damage with a bent arm.

            “Let me help you, sweetling,” Petyr said. He moved behind her, poking a cautious finger at the torn edges of her clothing. His fingers felt so cold against her inflamed back.

            I’m dying, was all that was running through Sansa’s mind.

            She heard Petyr rummage for something. Heard something else tear. Sansa jumped when the trickle of cold water poured over her wounds, but Petyr kept one hand higher on her back to keep her steady.

            “It’s alright, you’ll be alright,” he murmured. She felt cloth sweep at the gash. A roll of tape entered her vision. “Can you tear two pieces, please? About three inches long.”

            Sansa obliged. Her fingers trembled at trying to tear the stupid tape – several pieces fluttered to the floor bunched and stuck together. She managed the first and handed it over her shoulder. Petyr took it without a word. Without a complaint that Sansa was _useless_.

            She felt that way. She couldn’t even tear _tape_. How in the seven gods was she supposed to survive _this_?

            Sansa felt the tears pricking the corners of her eyes. She blinked them away as she finally, _finally_ , got that other tape ripped.

            Petyr’s fingers smoothed the tape across her back, running over the edges again and again in slow motions. It was soothing, in a weird way. An affirmation: you are okay, you are not alone, I’m here.

            She had to blink faster to keep the tears at bay.

            “The gash is only an inch long. You’ll be fine, sweetling,” he assured her. Words to match the motions. Sansa nodded. “I’m going to close up the tear in the jacket. Hand me the tape.”

            They stayed there for a long while as Petyr worked to repair the damage. Sansa listened for the distant rumble of the van, for the distant crash and destruction. She lost track of it. Perhaps it finally got stuck. Or maybe the driver got tired of it. Of trying to escape.

            Sansa felt fingers run across her torn clothing, patting down the tape, back and forth. One, two, three short strips going sideways. And one loooooooong rip of tape, running down the small of her back. Petyr’s hand moved across the length of her spine – Sansa felt the goosebumps rise, the tickling of his touch running outwards through her body. It reached her brain, and it quieted the voices, if for a moment.

            “There.” Petyr lightly patted her back before standing. He reached to help Sansa up. There was a small smile tugging at his lips. Another sign – you’ll be fine.

            She had to. She had to be strong if she wanted to get back home. To see her family again.

            Sansa took in a deep breath. In. Out.

            “We’re almost there,” she managed. She stared at the map that lay in the middle of the street. Half of it fluttered in the light breeze; the other half was plastered to the cobblestones.

            She didn’t need it anymore. Not because she had been staring at it for what felt like forever – the lines and names blurring together.

            But because she knew where she was now. She recognized the building at the end of the street: white, blocky, the top floors reaching higher to peek above those blocking the view of the bay.

            Sansa stared at the sixth floor balcony. At the railing she leaned on a week ago.

            A week ago. Everything was normal a week ago.

            They neared the apartment building, and continued past it. Sansa felt her own body tense as they walked by, as if it was remembering what life was like a week ago. Remembering the life that she had in store for her. Was it honestly better than the one she led now?

            Sansa thought she saw Petyr tense up, too. But she was projecting herself onto him.

            The market was just across the street. Joffrey had made her go and grab extra alcohol for the party. She was about to say that there was far more than necessary – but Sansa shut her mouth and complied. That’s what was expected of her. To be quiet. To follow rules. To live the perfect life as wife of the future prime minister.

            To prevent another rebellion. To keep the North in line through the daughter of Wolves.

            At least as his fiancée, Sansa knew the methods by which to keep herself alive. Now, in this world of survival, Sansa was struggling just as much as anyone else.

            They crossed the street. Here, there was room enough for cars. One lane, but drivers managed to squeeze in two. This was one of the streets that encircled the Sept.

            Sansa looked back at the building. At the entrance to the underground garage. At the edge of fire-red that peeked from the shadowed entrance. At the cracked taillight that he had always insisted he would get someone to fix, but never bothered.

            He made it back.

            Something loosened in her chest. Something else tightened.

            “Is that it?” Petyr asked. Sansa looked at the two-story market he was motioning to. The storefront windows weren’t shattered in – that was a good sign.

            “Yeah,” she replied.

            Petyr glanced at the sky. Sansa followed the movement. The clouds were growing darker – not rain dark, not yet. But the streaks of blue Sansa thrilled at were gone. Nothing colored the sky.

            “We’ll have to be quick,” he said.

            They entered the market. Despite the windows being intact, the shelves were ransacked. Some of them were thrown about, others snapped in half. But they were clean-picked of usable goods.

            Sansa wanted to blame herself for being too late.

            Petyr stepped over a body lying just inside the door and strolled through the aisles. Packaged and canned goods were on the lower level; produce, refrigerated, and frozen goods on the upper.

            As expected, the shelves of drinks were clean-picked. Not even that bitter grapefruit juice she was sure no one ever drank because they liked it. Someone was crouched in the aisle, mopping at a spilled drink with a rag and wringing it into his mouth. Sansa only hoped it was a drink.

            The row over with alcohol was cleanly picked, too. Scant bottles remained. Petyr had plenty of alcohol stored away, but he went ahead and reached through the shattered glass of the expensive drinks cabinet, pulling out the last exceedingly expensive bottle of whiskey. He wrapped it in a spare shirt in his bag.

            They tiptoed over the broken glass in the aisle and into the next.

            Whatever was on the shelves, they grabbed. Processed canned meat. Cardboard-dry granola bars. Dented cans of soup that fell underneath the toeboard.

            Food was food at this point.

            The second floor wasn’t any better.

            People were crowding the frozen cabinets, scraping at the ice and pouring it into Tupperware. Others were opening packages of TV dinners and family lasagnas, licking at the ice forming on the plastic packages. Someone was suckling frozen chicken strips.

            Sansa and Petyr split up, taking half of the aisles and meeting up in the back. Sansa avoided bodies, avoided making eye contact in fear of someone thinking she was a _threat_ to their ice collection.

            She thought about it for a heartbeat. About pushing people aside and scraping the ice for herself.

            She wouldn’t last long. Sansa and everyone who stared at her knew that too. They stopped staring when she moved away.

            So she grabbed at whatever packages were thrown haphazardly, stuffing anything and everything in her bag. Sansa was sure she never once ate most of whatever she could grab her hands on, but that didn’t matter.

            Life was more important than processed foods.

            Sansa was making her way towards the produce. Squashed oranges spilled their stickiness across the tiles. Bruised apples were kicked around for so long Sansa wasn’t sure what their original color was.

            “Need help?”

            She gripped the strap of her bag tightly.

            Turning around, Sansa came face-to-face with a boy her age. She saw how hard he tried to come off as _kind_ and _well-meaning_. Saw how his blue eyes didn’t smile with his lips. Saw how his shoulders were tense, how his feet were spread to prevent Sansa from an easy escape. She had seen those faces far too often in the past weeks. There were always underlying thoughts clouding the minds of people that tried exceptionally to be nice.

            Sansa flitted her gaze behind the boy, looking for Petyr. She couldn’t see him. “No, I’m good. Thank you.”

            She turned to head deeper into the produce to scavenge for whatever was left. The boy grabbed her arm and forced her to face him.

            Sansa’s heart beat in fear.

            Don’t trust him, said the voice in a tone that sounded like Petyr’s.

            “Wait, I know you,” the boy said, moving his face close to hers. She could smell a week of unbrushed teeth. His narrowed eyes took in Sansa’s face beneath the makeshift hood, but he couldn’t see very well. His fingers set it off her head. Sansa noticed how carefully he made sure his fingers brushed over her temple on their way down and up.

            Don’t trust him, Petyr warned in her mind. Over and over.

            “I don’t think so,” Sansa squeaked out. She wanted to sound uncaring. But the fear was tightening her throat smaller and smaller.

            His hand moved from the hood to her shoulder, fingers digging hard. It felt so _wrong_ resting there. Because Sansa knew exactly what sort of intentions this boy had for her.

            He snapped his fingers. “Yeah! You’re Joffrey’s thing, right?”

            _Thing_. The word rankled, echoed.

            Don’t trust him, drowning out the sounds of the store.

            “No. Leave me alone.” Sansa shoved his hand off her. She moved further among the tables once-full of fruits. She kept her eyes forward, her hand whiting around the bag’s strap.

            He didn’t come after her. Sansa breathed a sigh of relief – she hadn’t known it would work. It rarely had. No, it _never_ had. Boys like him never took _no_ for an answer. Only as an excuse to continue pestering; only as a _challenge_ needing to be won.

            “Fucking bitch,” she heard him mutter as he stalked away. “Get what you deserve.”

            Sansa dared to look over at him. He shoved a lady into a shelf on his way downstairs. Not because he wanted to claim a box of food, but because he _could_.

            She couldn’t shake the voice that continued to scream in her mind.

            There wasn’t anything of use among or beneath the tables. No wayward packs of dried nuts or berries. No mushy bananas left over, either. People seemed to forget how disgusting those used to be.

            A few browning vegetables sat strewn over their neatly arranged dividers. Sansa debated them. It had been so long since she had something healthy. Her hand moved to reach for a bent carrot. Until the sprinkler system came on, dousing the shelves and the stray carrot and Brussel sprouts in a fine mist of _water_.

            Sansa backed away.

            Was it poisoned? Yes. It had to be – everything was poisoned.

            She felt sorry for whoever took all the fruits and vegetables. A ruse to be healthy at the end of the world – only to die by eating their vegetables.

            Sansa’s bag was far lighter than she would have preferred. It wasn’t the food that concerned her; the whatever scraps she threw in. It was the lack of water. She looked back at the vegetable mister, then at the ice coating the freezers.

            She stood by the emergency exit. Waiting for Petyr. Staring at the store. There wouldn’t be anything of value left in an hour’s time. In ten minute’s time. Would any other stores have supplies left? And if they did, how likely was it Sansa would get to it first? Or that Sansa would win against someone more _desperate_ for it?

            There was a sad flower display set up beside Sansa. They weren’t touched, not like everything else in the store. A bit damaged from passersby, petals strewn on the floor. But alive. And waiting, for someone to take notice of them.

            But you couldn’t eat flowers. Not these kind. No one was going to brave the horrors of the rain and starving humans for these unusable _things_.

            Sansa couldn’t help but finger at a cluster of pale pink peonies. She lifted the largest one, the most open one, inhaling its faint aroma of nature and _life_. For a moment, Sansa was brought back home. The earthy scent of this small flower flinging the wild woods and fields of the North through her mind.

            She would bring it back. It wouldn’t be of any use, but Sansa would at least care for this solitary flower. For however long it lasted.

            She was tearing the stem short when a drop of water snaked its way beneath her sleeve and down, down to her elbow.

            Sansa froze.

            “Ready?”

            Sansa didn’t move.

            Petyr approached, entering her peripheral. But she didn’t look at him. All Sansa saw was the snaking trail of water, from her palm down below her wrist.

            She was going to die.

            “Sansa?”

            She slowly brought her gaze to meet his. She felt the tears beginning, felt her body shaking. The fear Sansa had kept a leash on for so long – had wanted to be strong enough to overcome – it was escaping. It was over it was over it was over-

            “Sansa.” Petyr shook her shoulders. She looked at him, his expression clouded behind her tears.

            “You’re brilliant.”

            She was going to…what?

            Sansa couldn’t bring her hands up to wipe the tears from her eyes. They stayed coiled about the peony.

            Petyr’s hand moved instead. Sliding up across her cheek, thumb lightly swiping at the gathering water. One eye, the other. He kept his hand at the side of her face. She felt his warmth seep in under the fear.

            “Sweetling, you’re _brilliant_ ,” he whispered. Petyr moved Sansa’s head forward, and she felt the searing heat of his lips press gently against her forehead.

            Then he was gone; his hand, his mouth. Sansa stared as he worked.

            Petyr carefully lifted the each bundle of flower, waiting for the brunt of the water to stop dripping. The bundle was placed into one canister. Then the next bundle: lift, wait, place.

            Sansa watched. She couldn’t move. The combination of fear and _confusion_ , and also _excitement_. The furious pounding of her heart was all she could hear. Sansa clutched the peony and her hands over her chest, an attempt to catch her heart should it thud its way outside.

            Petyr glanced back towards the people still crowding the frozen shelves. They seemed not to pay the two of them any mind, so focused on the dripping ice.

            “Lift this can and pour it, sweetling.”

            Sansa didn’t trust her hands, but she did as he asked. She swore the canister shook as the water poured into the open bottle Petyr was holding steady.

            She found her voice beneath the hammering in her chest and the tightness in her throat. “What…?”

            He moved in closer, whispering to her as his fingers screwed the lid to the bottle that once held juice or alcohol. “This water,” his voice was low, so low that Sansa had to lean in even further to hear it over the din beyond them. “This water, how long ago do you think someone bothered to change it?”

            Sansa stared at the bottle that was nearly topped with water. Petals and bits of stems floated on the surface. Dust, too, and who knew what else.

            “Exactly,” Petyr responded. “This water is clean.” He saw the incredulous look on Sansa’s face, lifting the corners of his lips at the disbelief of _cleanliness_. “Not poisoned, at least. Boil the water and it’ll be fine.”

            It made sense. Sansa couldn’t be sure that it was entirely sanitary to drink water that had been sitting around for over a week, filled with flowers and debris. But she wasn’t sure it was any less clean than the water scraped from the edges of a market freezer.

            And it was their best bet.

            Sansa thought on all of the markets in the city. On all of them that sold flowers. If they took their time, shuffling from one store to the other, bottling up the flower water, they wouldn’t have to worry about fighting over whatever was on the shelves.

            The din of the store was growing louder and louder as Petyr and Sansa worked to fill another bottle. So focused on their task, on ensuring not a single drop spilled – that it was too late.

            Someone screamed.

            Sansa nearly dropped the canister. Her head shot towards the staircase, towards the commotion.

            The can clattered at her feet.

            Dogs. Large dogs. Large rabid dogs.

            Tearing at the limbs of women and men and children.

            The room was so small every sound was deafening. The screams, the growls, the stomping of feet as people ran. Ran towards the emergency exit.

            Towards Sansa and Petyr.

            “Run!” Petyr yelled at Sansa. He grabbed the bottle, not bothering capping it, as he shoved Sansa through the door. The alarm blared in her ears.

            They descended down the emergency stairs. Petyr behind her. Other people behind him. The dogs behind them.

            She made it to the bottom. There were two doors, one on either side of landing. Petyr shoved Sansa through the one on the left. Someone else was shoving on them. Edging their way between and in front of Sansa.

            He was first out the door.

            The dogs outside charged on him.

            Sansa ran out, followed by Petyr. She ran blindly forward, hoping it was right. Hoping the dogs would be satisfied with that man’s limbs, his screaming behind her cut short.

            They weren’t.

            Petyr edged beside her.

            “Car!” Petyr yelled.

            The dog was just behind her. Closing in the last few inches. It was at her feet. She felt swipe at her legs, nearly tripping her. Her foot kicked it, barely catching herself as she moved. On she ran and ran and ran.

            Petyr made it to the car, grabbing at the handle. The door flung open, thank the gods.

            He moved to let Sansa in. She jumped for the opening.

            She heard a _thump_ and a whine from the dog.

            The door slammed closed. Another _thump_.

            Petyr crawled over the front seat to slam on the door lock button.

            “Get down!” Petyr was yelling at Sansa over the howling of the rabid dog outside. It continued to slam into the vehicle.

            Sansa didn’t know what was going on, but she moved to the floor. She curled tightly, wedging herself between the front and back seats. Her breathing was fast and shallow, her body shaking with fear.

            She almost died.

            She might still die.

            Sansa felt Petyr lift her hood over her hair. Then her bag, throwing it over her body. She peeked, and saw Petyr was arranging himself the same way.

            The inside of the car was dim, but she could still make out her body, his. Could see the darkening clouds from the sliver of window.

            And then it was silent.

            The dog had stopped slamming into the door, had stopped barking for them to come out and play.

            The screaming in the distance stopped too.

            Everything was gone. Or dead.

            All Sansa heard was their own labored breathing. Her body was starting to cramp, the adrenaline fizzling out of her muscles. Her lungs felt like they were on fire.

            Footsteps approached the car. Slow, casual strides. And the light patter of a dog’s. Her breathing caught.

            She tried to hear the man’s voice. Something about people in the car. Silence. The dog whined. The man cursed the stupid mutt, and the dog cried out.

            The footsteps faded away.

            Sansa still didn’t move. She wouldn’t move until Petyr said so.

            It was several minutes later – a time that felt like forever. Maybe it was an hour instead. A day?

            Petyr’s voice broke the uneasy silence. “Are you alright?”

            Was she? Deep down, far underneath the skin and her attempt at a façade of strength… Was she really okay? No, never.

            But that wasn’t what he was asking. “I’m fine. The dog missed me.”

            A pause. “Good.”

            Another minute passed before Sansa heard Petyr rustling the bag off of him. And then she felt the weight lift from her own back.

            They sat up, stretching cramped muscles as best they could in the confines of the car. It was a minivan. Scraps of paper and a Travelers’ Guide littered the front passenger seat. There was a crumpled bag of fast food by Sansa’s foot.

            Sansa stared out the window. The street was dark, the clouds darker. It was going to rain soon. They would have to wait it out in this car.

            The car itself was abandoned in the middle of the road, set in the darkness between to lamp posts. For all the world to see; to keep an _eye_ on.

            “Who was that?” Sansa asked.

            Petyr was stretching his arms, staring forward through the windshield. “I don’t know. I didn’t see his face.”

            Neither did Sansa. Would she have recognized him if she had?

            “Was he…?” A thought crept into Sansa’s mind and started to fester. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Would you say he was a strange person?”

            The underlying jab at the _knowledge_ did not pass by Petyr. The arm he was stretching tensed if for a moment. It was hard to tell in the dim evening light.

            _Drip_.

            It was faint. It always started as something faint. A ghost of what was to come.

            The rain had begun.

            Petyr swore.

            They were lucky, weren’t they – to have escaped before the rain started. Half an hour later and they would have exploded out of the door straight into a storm.

            Would death by rain have been worse than death by feral animals? Both fates seemed just as bad. The question remaining was which would have killed faster.

            Sansa dug through her bag, searching with her fingers. She jerked back when they touched whatever frozen entrees she threw in. Digging through, around this package and that can. There. She pulled the smashed bottle of water out and took generous sips. Half of the bottle was gone before she gasped for air.

            It was all she had. She would need to make it last until whenever the rain stopped.

            That’s when she noticed it was gone.

            “What happened to the flower water?”

            Petyr’s silhouette turned to face her. “I have the first one in my bag.” She heard him rummage for it, heard him take it out to inspect it was sealed. “The second is gone.”

            “Gone?”

            He set the bottle on the floor. “The dog was on your heels. I threw it to buy you time to jump in.”

            That was the first thump, then.

            Petyr continued to rummage around. She heard the telltale clink of the alcohol bottle. He didn’t swear, so Sansa knew it hadn’t broken in their flight. Which was a surprise.

            The seal _crack_ ed loudly, and she heard the liquid fall down his throat. The rain was beginning to pick up, attacking the car at an angle.

            It would have been soothing, if Sansa hadn’t known one drop of it would kill her.

            Several more minutes passed in silence.

            “What now?”

            Petyr thrummed his fingers against the glass bottle. One two three four. One two three four. The rhythm was calming, somehow.

            _Wham_.

            Sansa screamed. She jumped from the window, from the _thing_ that was pounding against the glass.

            It left thick, dark smears where its hands slammed again and again.

            There was a voice, too: “Let me in for the love of the gods please let me in!”

            Sansa watched. His hands were pounding slower while the rain picked up its own pace. It fell on the car and slid down through the trails of blood and flesh.

            “Don’t let him in,” Petyr warned. She wasn’t going to – she wasn’t _foolish_. But she might have if the rain hadn’t started.

            Might have?

            “Please,” he croaked as his body slid out of view. But he was still there. Huddled against the wheel, crying in pain as the water tore down towards his bone. There wouldn’t be much of him come dawn.

            Her voice was so quiet: “Get what you deserve.”

            She watched the water wash the blood from the window.

            When it was finally cleaned, Sansa asked Petyr again: “What now?”

            She heard the bottle rise to his lips again. “We find the person responsible for the rain.”

            That…that was an actual _answer_.

            Sansa turned to look at Petyr. What she would give to see the thoughts swirling in his mind. The way the lines and muscles twitched as he lied. Even his lips – those lips that brushed against her forehead. She still felt the ghost of them on her skin.

            “And then?”

            Petyr’s shadow continued to stare at her. “And then we take him out.”

            “How?”

            He shrugged. “Does it matter?”

            Did it? A man responsible for _thousands_ of deaths – was it just to put him on trial? To allow the man a peaceful death?

            If this was the same man that brutally murdered the man back in the Mockingbird… If this was the same man that left that sort of _thing_ as a warning… What was Petyr thinking? How could someone like Petyr take on someone as ruthless and cruel as that?

            Unless Petyr was, too. That was the question of the week – was Petyr capable of horrible murders, as a justification for revenge? Or more accurately: was it all a ruse? Has Sansa been played to think she was safe, when the man responsible for everything was actually sitting an arm’s length away this entire time?

            Sansa sipped on some more water. “What does he want?”

            Beneath the rumble of rain, she heard Petyr gulp. “He wants what was promised him.”

            “A world of dead people?”

            Petyr didn’t laugh. Not even a breathy sigh through nose. His fingers resumed their tapping upon the glass: one two three four one two three four. Faster now.

            Did Sansa want to know?

            She might not make it through tomorrow. She might not even make it through this night. Who knew what was waiting for them. Sansa could only hope a beat-up minivan was protection enough against all the horrors pelting them. Waiting for them.

            “What did you promise him?”

            No beating around the question. She knew – he knew she knew - what the token was for. A promise for services rendered. A Northern tradition. And Northerners held traditions and promises as highly as their reverence to the old gods.

            One two three four.

            Sansa stared at him.

            Part of her wanted to take back her question. To pretend that everything was only nightmare. That perhaps Sansa was still back in the Mockingbird enjoying his silent company. Waiting for the storm to pass. Pretending the world hadn’t ended, not yet.

            She felt the coils around her chest tighten.

            Sansa didn’t need light to see the regret in Petyr’s face. It was all in that single word.

            “You.”


	8. raindrop in the drought

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Oh wow, it's finally finished. I still can't believe it. :( Like always, it came out /way/ longer than I expected. Probably could have broken it into two chapters, but oh well.  
> But I hope you enjoy it! Please let me know what you think, about this chapter and the story overall!!]

 

            _You._

            That single word echoed louder than the raindrops pelting across the van’s roof and walls. Louder than the thrumming of blood coursing through her chest, her head. Over and over in her mind: _you you you you you you you you_.

            Sansa should have known. She had _assumed_ , and instead tucked the nagging doubt away behind the pestering voices. Had always questioned if there was something _more_ in the reason why Petyr chose to save her that evening. Why he braved the oncoming storm, the roar of water and fading screams.          

            Why he ever bothered to save some unknown girl - some throwaway _thing_ that had no use anymore.

            Petyr saved Sansa to save himself.

            The sharp _crack_ of her hand across his face warmed the frozen blood running in her fingers.

            Sansa wanted to scream. To yell. To throw her emotions and her fists at Petyr.

            Sansa wanted to cry. To break down. To curl up and give in to the voice that was always warning her to _not trust him_.

            She sat there. Her arm was still raised after the slap, her breathing coming out in short, wobbling gasps. Sansa heard the breaths crack – her throat wanting both to let it all out and to constrict her at the same time.

            What she would give to see Petyr’s face. To see the _hurt_ , or the _betrayal_ , the turmoil of emotions mimicked in those mossy eyes. Even the _anger_ at the strike against him – to see his cheek explode into a fiery red from her hand and from his own vehemence.

            All he did was sit there and accept Sansa’s hatred and fear.

            She recognized it then. Even in the darkness of the car – his face and body shadowed silhouettes of the man Sansa had come to know, with only the faintest wisps of hair illuminated by the moon. She could _feel_ it in the air between them.

            Regret.

It was there since that morning. That unknown emotion clouding his face when they awoke to blue streaks coloring the sky. The _regret_ of what Petyr had done. What he was _about_ to do.

            Sansa suddenly felt _ashamed_. At her outburst, at his own secrets. At the idea that everything – the rain and its cataclysmic death of _thousands_ of innocent souls; the aftermath of survival instincts overtaking basic human decency – all of it was her fault.

            If she weren’t here, if she weren’t alive… Might things have turned out differently? Might people still be alive and unafraid of a greying sky?

            She might not have met Petyr. And she might never have seen or heard the regret plaguing the silence between them.

            Might not have been the _cause_ of it.

            Sansa lowered her gaze and her arm, resting it with the other in her lap. She tried to control her breathing. Slow breath in; slow breath out. Fingers twirled the hem of her makeshift jacket, crumpling and folding and crinkling the fabric until it began to give.

            Finally she stared back up at Petyr, at his shadowed form. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t said a thing.

            “Why?”

            She heard the faint beat of his fingers against the bottle underneath the din of the rain: one two three four one two three four. Had he been doing that the whole time? Thinking over his own emotions, his own doubts?

            It was calming. A tether on Sansa’s mind, keeping her grounded in the here and now. To keep the voices at bay. She counted along, one two three four.

            They let the rain fill the silence between them for a few moments.

            “It was long ago. Before I met you,” Petyr spoke softly, quietly. Sansa leaned in if only to hear better. “There was… unrest across Westeros. Rebellion against the injustices they endured. And against all odds, the Targaryans fell. People hoped, _believed_ , the line of mad kings and queens was over. That the medieval horrors they unleashed across the country would stop. Westeros would finally match our neighbors’ governments and humane practices.” He paused. “But they didn’t.”

            Sansa thought back to those history lessons from long ago. About the _barbaric_ tortures by the Dragons, and how the reveled in the screams. How they were thought to have drunk the blood of their victims.

            How the customs of the Dragons spread across Westeros during their – even in the North.

            “A new, democratic rule was created,” Petyr went on. He was leaning back, head resting against the window. Soft, dark curls caught the scant light. “A prime minister and cabinet, from the larger families across the seven counties. Peace. They promised peace, prosperity, and an end to the terrorism of Dragons.”

            Sansa shifted in her seat. She knew about this, if only a bit. Her father had fought against the Dragons, had helped to aid to that ideal of _peace_.

            “Not everyone liked _sharing power_. Hardly a decade went by before civil unrest. Do you know about the Iron Islands Rebellion, sweetling?”

            “A bit. They wanted their freedom, and they lost.”

            “Yes, but _how_?”

            That Sansa didn’t know. She shook her head.

            “Water.” When she didn’t respond, Petyr continued. “Those mighty Greyjoys died by the water they lorded over. They fear it now; loathe it.”

            The threads in Sansa’s mind were slowly unraveling and forming the answers he was prodding at. “It wasn’t… _Normal_ water, was it?” Petyr shook his head. “What was…. What _is_ it?”

            “That, I’m not sure. A bacteria, most likely. Something that feasts on blood. Others say it’s _madness_. A return of the Dragons. Sea serpents spewing water that burned and consumed like fire. Whatever it is, the Targaryans left a fair store of it behind. And the new _peaceful_ government exterminated the Greyjoys using their own love against them.”

            Sansa didn’t know much about the Krakens, only that they were the largest and most-feared naval warriors in all of Westeros. She didn’t want to imagine the proud sailors clawing at their faces like the man from yesterday, but she couldn’t help it. Sansa’s fingers were moving against her wrist before she stopped them.

            “So?” she asked. How did all of this involve _her_? Involve an unbreakable deal with Petyr that led to all of this?

            Petyr took a long drag of the alcohol. The liquid in the bottle glimmered in the faint light. She watched and heard it fall into his shadow.

            “So,” he finally continued. “The madness never died. The prime minister _mysteriously_ perished not long after the Rebellion. Now the Lannisters sit in power. Bribing their desires to become indisputable laws. Threatening anyone with that madness and other tortures should someone not cooperate. Nay-sayers go into the Keep in a front of making peace, and never return.”

            Sansa thought on the catacombs of rooms and hallways beneath the Red Keep that were unused and off-limits. Off-limits from a fear that someone would walk in on something meant to remain _hidden_.

            “So?” she repeated. Sansa could have sworn he let out a small laugh, but it might have been the wind

            “So, sweetling, people were tired of hundreds of years of insane kings. And now a new reign of insane prime ministers – can you only imagine the disappointment of the country losing the freedom of a democracy? Losing something they’ve only barely _tasted_?” There was something in the way Petyr said it that made Sansa fidget in her seat. “But, the people aren’t foolish. Not all of them. A single peep of another foolish rebellion, and the Lannisters would make sure of an unkind death by water or fire or some other horror.”

            “The North isn’t foolish,” Sansa countered.

            No amount of light was necessary for the knowledge that Petyr definitely smirked at her being _offended_.

            “No, sweetling. Not any more foolish than anyone else, I’ll grant you that. But furthest from the capital and much easier _swayed_.”

            Sansa furrowed her brows in confusion. “How do you mean?”

            “They…” He was waving his hand, trying to capture the right word or phrasing for her. “They aren’t used to the sorts of _deals_ common here. Honor is a sort of currency that not all families were interested in, not anymore.”

            “So someone bribed Northmen to rebel?” Sansa was still unsure. She was so certain that anyone who grew up in the North would never disobey the ideals of trust and honor. No one worth their weight in salt or gold would have. A stab of betrayal wedged its way in through her chest: the endless miles and people she once considered _hers_ , betraying her family for wealth. “Who? And why?”

            “For _power_ , sweetling. Always power and money.”

            Like the Lannisters. Sansa only had to be around them for an hour to understand the unquenchable _lust_ of the Lions for that: power and money. The power to remain rulers of all of Westeros, despite the front of peace and democracy they weakly upheld. The power to bind every person to their whims. And the money needed to bind those that weren’t entirely cooperative.

            Either that, or that _madness_. Sansa could only imagine the sorts of horrors they might have unleashed on her had she _disobeyed_ or stepped so much as an inch out of line. Her lady’s courtesies brought her bruises and tears – and saved her from things _far worse_.

            That still left the final, burning question. The question Sansa needed only _confirmed_. “Who would have been foolish to rebel against the Lannisters?”

            Petyr’s fingers started tapping again – one two three four. “They weren’t foolish to go against the Lannisters. Anyone with half a brain knew the Lannisters needed taking out.” One two three four. “The fools were in fact entirely for dismantling the false democracy the Lions clung to.”

            “Then…” She didn’t fail to notice the _avoidance_ of the question. Perhaps the lack of an answer was as good as a confirmation. “If not the Lannisters…”

            “Yes, sweetling. They did.” He assumed – _knew_ – that she was aware of the _culprit_. One two three four. Sansa could feel Petyr’s eyes staring directly into hers, even in the darkness. Could imagine them, too. The glint of darkness always covering cool green. The way they seemed to shift in intensity depending how deep in thought he was – the sorts of plans threading in his mind. Or the sorts of _thoughts_ Sansa could feel on her own skin. She only realized how often Sansa had stared into his eyes in the past week, now that she couldn’t.

            “But,” he began. And she heard again that underlying _regret_ , and something else. Pride maybe? One two three four. “They weren’t foolish to take down the Lannisters. No, they were foolish to go against me.”

* * *

            The rain stopped when Sansa awoke. The dull patter against the car had lulled her to sleep, with her body wrapped in nothing more than sweaty clothes and garbage bags. Never in her years had she imagined herself in a situation like this. In a situation that called for anything so _unladylike_. But she had fallen asleep without remembering when. How much further into plans and reasons of the world. Sansa was pleased that her dreams were thankfully silent.

            Her cheek was warm. There was a layer of sweat to it, to that fabric Sansa’s head was lying against. She could already tell that her neck was going to have a crook in it, but for the moment she could almost forget about everything.

            When she felt the fabric move, Sansa remembered. The rain and the death and her being at the center of it.

            And the man her head was against.

            Sansa’s first instinct was to move her body away. Claim it an err in her sleep (which it was), and only hope he hadn’t been awake yet. To laugh it off and forget. But she didn’t, not at first. Something kept her cheek pressed against Petyr – was it his shoulder she was against? It had to be.

            His breathing was slow and steady. Asleep – he was still asleep, thank the gods. Sansa used that as the excuse not to move, not even opening her eyes. Just listening to his soft breaths, and his body moving in that rhythm. In, up; out, down. It eased the worry in her mind, quieted the voices. She stayed there, letting the heat flow from his shoulder into her face and through her body. Sansa thought if she listened hard enough, she could hear the beat of Petyr’s heart reverberate beneath the plastic and cloth and skin. Hear it beating off-tempo with the breaths. Beating almost as fast as her own.

            Sansa moved then, sitting erect. She turned her head to face out the window, towards nothing in particular. Behind her she heard Petyr move awake. Or rather, _reveal_ himself being awake.

            She wondered how long he had been pretending.

            Her fingers were trembling as they undid her braid and combed through the unruly curls. Never had Sansa gone this long without washing her hair. The braid at least kept some of the curls, she realized as she shook out her coppery mane. But there were so many knots and flyaways. Not to mention the _smell_ that Sansa had got used to. She didn’t want to think on the layers and layers of filth and sweat that covered her, regardless of the makeshift vodka baths. What she would give for a proper soak in a tub.

            Sansa was still running her fingers through her hair when she turned back to Petyr. She made an effort of surprise – as if just noticing he was awake too. She could still feel his shoulder pressed against her face. The warmth, too.

            Soft dawn light filtered in through the resilient drops on the car’s windows. She was glad to see Petyr’s face and eyes and hair – to see the lightness bounce off the jacket and send errant rays across his skin. She had to admit, deep down, that she hated not being able to see him last night. She hated how naturally the shadows had covered him.

            “Don’t suppose you could fix up some eggs and bacon for breakfast, can you?” Sansa asked. She tossed her hair behind her, not satisfied with the amount of knots left but unable to do much about it. She would braid it again before they left.

            The skin about Petyr’s eyes crinkled as his lips turned into a soft smile. “Unfortunately, no. But I can offer you some water, flavored with the city’s finest flowers.”

            Sansa had to smile at the jab, even if a twinge of fear coiled through her. But, she _was_ thirsty. Thirsty enough to drink dirty and hopefully-not-contaminated-by-death water? Not yet. “I’ll pass. But thanks for the offer.”

            They fished through their bags, examining whatever meager items they were able to salvage from the store. Sansa passed on anything salty or dry – which was nearly everything they had. They shared a TV dinner and a can of soup Petyr managed to open with the emergency window breaker in the car’s glove box. A breakfast of champions. A breakfast of _survivors_.

            Petyr added the breaker to his own bag before pulling free the tape and roll of garbage bags. She reached behind and touched where that van’s mirror tore at her yesterday. It flashed through her mind. Sansa felt the ghosting of fingers across her back. From the nape of her neck down, following the soft curve of her spine, down and down in a slow drag until finally reaching the small of her back. Fingers resting there, a light press – still, she felt the fire in them, Felt the electricity spread all the way to her fingertips and toes.

            She blinked, bringing her gaze up to him. Petyr had asked her something she didn’t hear. “Sorry?”

            He seemed to have been somewhere else, too. Sansa’s voice brought him back. “I said we should repair our rainclothes before heading out again.”

            Sansa almost didn’t hear him again. His voice was swallowed by those invisible fingers still lingering across her wound. Somehow, she managed a nod.

             Petyr asked, “Which leg did the dog bite at?”

            She felt at her calves, not even remembering the events from the evening. They all blurred together into a single moment of _fear_. Sansa’s fingers felt the jagged tear halfway down her left leg. She prodded beneath the plastic, feeling for dried blood and hanging skin. There was a light scrap of teeth against her calf – something Sansa could not recall. She remembered the dog, yes, but not it actually biting at her.

            “This one, but it’s not bad.” Sansa brought her leg up at an awkward angle, showing Petyr the gash. She didn’t mention that the dog had left a wound beneath the cloth. When Sansa saw him move closer, she quickly added: “I can fix it myself.”

            Petyr hesitated. His gaze was on the tear, but Sansa could still feel his touch on her back. Feel the heat, the movement. But he conceded, handing the supplies over.

            They fixed their clothing in silence, speaking only to pass items. Sansa had a tear along her right forearm that only tore at fabric. The cuffs of Petyr’s pants had visible teeth marks, shredding at one leg nearly mid-calf. Sansa felt ice in her veins – realizing how _close_ the dog had gotten.

            Once finished, they packed their few things away, checking the compartments and pockets and under seats for anything else of use. Aside from the window breaker and the map, there wasn’t anything practical.

            Sansa exited through her door, careful of straying drips from the van’s frame. She barely had a foot out the car when she remembered _him_.

            The body slumped by the tire. Skin clawed at with fingers, torn through by rain – just like every other one. She made out his blonde hair streaked with blood.

            There was only the slightest twinge of _disgust_ before it was gone. She wanted to feel it again: the revulsion, the fear, the creeping pressure up her throat and expelled. She wanted this to be something abnormal again.

            Sansa had seen so many dead bodies already. What was one more?

            They stared out across the street, surveying the chaos. The people lying about, their limbs or heads torn and lying somewhere else. The rain washed away the blood between the cracks in the cobblestones. She could have sworn there were more bodies in the store than there were on the the streets. All those had followed them outside. To safety. To their doom.

            It was so still, Sansa could hear the faint lapping of the water from the ocean. Waves flowing back and forth, their motions echoing between the buildings until finally reaching her. It was so close to being peaceful – she lifted her head, closed her eyes, and imagined it could be.

            Petyr spoke: “We should head back to the Mockingbird.”

            Sansa opened her eyes, her gaze falling six stories above the carnage littering the streets.

            He denied her request the first time. Perhaps now… “We should find some supplies. There’s hardly much to get us through the day.”

            She felt him approach her, could picture the mixture of confusion and worry on his face.

            “I’m sure those apartments would have something.” Sansa didn’t allow Petyr the room to speak before her feet carried her forward.

            “Wait!” he called out, following her steps. They weaved about the new and old piles of decomposing bodies, avoiding puddles and potholes.

            She was standing in front the car before she realized it. Its fire-red paint seemed less red now. Less like the fire or blood she once pictured it, like she once associated with Joffrey. It seemed such a cheap knock-off of a color, now.

            Sansa managed to recoil her hand before it brushed over the metal. The metal coated in fine drops of water.

            But she saw how the car was haphazardly parked, barely beneath the safety of the garage. There were scratches in the red – a deeper red than the fire.

            She was moving before her mind caught up. Before she heard the voice – “Wait!” – inside and outside of her head. They merged into a single voice.

            The elevator door was propped open by the bodies shoving their way out the door. There were so many of them, clawing to at the freedom that was so close. Stairs it was, then.

            Bodies and gore littered the six flights of stairs. Sansa ignored them, if only because she might _recognize_ the pained scream frozen on their mutilated faces.

            So many of them fell with arms across faces. Not to claw and tear – but to _shield_.

            She made it most of the way up before Petyr grabbed her arm. “Wait.” His voice was deep, firm. It shut down the echoing voice within her head. An assertion that the physical voice just behind her was the real one. The only one.

            “You don’t need to go up there,” he continued. He warned, as if already _knowing_ what was to be waiting for her one flight up.

            Death, of course. Even Sansa knew that.

            But a little nagging thread in her mind wanted to know. Wanted to see if it was true.

            She broke free of Petyr’s grip and continued.

            The nagging was right.

            She didn’t know them personally. Only in passing, only whenever he invited her over or out for a night of debauchery. They were fond of staring at Sansa with their leering gazes, undressing her, and entirely jealous of their _friend_ that kept Sansa all to himself. As jealous and determined as those infinite men she shook hands with within the Red Keep.

            They had been running away before the water claimed their skin.

            The hall leading towards Joffrey’s apartment was littered with bodies and human waste. There weren’t enough clean spots for Sansa to make her way through without dirtying her booties. Nor could she use the walls as support – the walls were painted in jagged streaks of human.

            Concentrated in such a small space, the _smell_ threatened to bring back her breakfast. She was flown back to the courtyard of the Keep – to the finely-dressed women and servants strewn about the floor. Those people at least had the dignity of room to die in. The people here – no, the _children_ and young adults, hardly anyone was above twenty name-days – were so clustered. And it only got worse as she approached the door.

            Sansa braced herself against the frame before entering.

            Flashes of music and drinks and dancing. Of Joffrey throwing up all over himself. Of Margaery flinging her body onto him without a care. Of the unknown faces who wanted only to be in the presence of _power_ and _wealth_.

            They might have been terrible, but did they deserve this?

            All of her strength left her as Sansa added her own breakfast into the room.

            Strung from the rows of ceiling lights was a body. Or, parts of one.

            Drawn and quartered, it reminded her. But that would have been kinder. Kinder than what Sansa could only imagine was skin peeled apart while _still alive_. And the decomposition of the muscles, the wasting away of it from bones in random places - as though someone threw the contaminated water on the throbbing muscles and hanging bits of flesh. Reveled in the screams. Sansa saw the bones of the ribs peeking through, stained red and that sickly green.

            The body was so disfigured, Sansa couldn’t begin to imagine _who_ it was. Who it _had_ _been_..

            There was an arm across her shoulders. Sansa startled, nearly slipping in her own vomit. Petyr caught her, pressing her into his own body. Shielding her from the horrors behind her. No amount of contact could hide the image imprinted in Sansa’s mind – so clear, so vivid, that even the muscles were leaking blood onto the floor.

            A hand was brushing her head, down to her neck, her shoulders, then back. Over the pounding blood in her ears, Sansa could tell Petyr was saying something of _comfort_ , but the words failed to form in her mind.

            It was so much worse than the one Petyr had been trying to hide. So much worse, that Sansa wondered if it was a warning, or a way to pass the time between rainfalls.

            But Petyr had been with her for the last week. He couldn’t have done this, or the one back in the club. There was something so horribly barbaric in the act itself. And then enjoying the pain, the disfigurement – Sansa had to wonder on the humanity of the culprit.

            At least it wasn’t Petyr.

            Right?

            Sansa hadn’t registered Petyr leading her outside until they were standing back in the street. Her body was still shaking, still being held upright by Petyr’s comforting arms. A part of her wanted to stay like this – wrapped and forgotten, the rest of the world a fading idea of a memory.

            A part of her still told her to _run_.

            They travelled back to the Mockingbird, taking a new path through streets and passing buildings Sansa didn’t know. She hardly registered their way back, though. That image, that body – every time Sansa blinked, it flashed behind her eyelids.

            Was it someone she knew? Was it… Joffrey? Or even Margaery? Maybe. It could have just as likely been some nameless acquaintance, or even a stray wanderer who came only for the free alcohol. A poor soul in the wrong place at the wrong time.

            But not Sansa. She escaped that fate, if only barely. Annoyance and fear coursed through her that day, wanting to be anywhere else. Wanting to be with anyone else. But most of all, wanting to be back home.

            The Red Keep was as close as she got. Seconds – that’s how long Sansa had between her life now, and a life ending with her clawing at her own skin, rolling across the gravel and screaming for it to _stop_.

            Was that all it took for the poor souls at the party? Did Sansa miss death _twice_ by a few seconds?

            And would she be lucky a third time?

            “Shit.”

            Sansa glanced up at Petyr, who was staring past her. No, behind her. She followed his gaze.

            The doors were broken.

            The etched glass lay in shards before the frame, mostly on the inside of the building. Someone broke in, not out. One door was thrown open.

            Petyr was pressing Sansa towards a wall with one arm, and digging into his bag with another. She heard the rattle of food and bottles, but all she stared at was the light bouncing off the glass shards.

            Until Petyr pulled out a gun.

            Sansa shirked away, bumping into a column set outside the wall. He had that the whole time – he could have shot her at any time. Could have ended her life in a time less than a few seconds.

            Would he?

            He pulled out the window breaker, too, handing it to Sansa. “It’s not much,” he affirmed, the item barely in her shaking fingers before he was approaching the doors. Petyr was clutching the gun like someone who had definitely held one before. Who had definitely _shot_ one.

            Petyr peered through the darkness, his grip tight on the weapon. After a few moments, he motioned for Sansa to follow before tip-toeing across the field of glass.

            She felt so _useless_. Sansa wasn’t sure which feeling was flowing strongest through her – that uselessness of not knowing how to protect herself (or Petyr, should she need to), or the fear that this once-safe space shared by them had been _tainted_.

            It was a stray survivor looking for food, she told herself.

            It made sense. People had been fighting over the last morsels in markets. Food and water and even ice. By this morning, nothing would remain in those stores. So people would need to expand their search. Commercial places like these – clubs or restaurants or museums. Anything that could have a possibility of _survival_ stored within.

            Not long after that, any final vestiges of human decency would have survivors storming through houses. Whether there were people in them already was didn’t matter. All that mattered was the desperation of both sides. Which side wanted to survive _more_.

            Sansa kept telling herself that as they wove their way through the floors. She was never more than two or three steps away from Petyr, her eyes flitting around at any _discrepancies_. She couldn’t remember them all. Couldn’t remember if Petyr arranged the bottles like that, or if she had left three napkins on the counter or two. If that door was an inch too ajar. If the accent red on the walls really were that shade - or if they seemed more _crimson_ than she recalled.

            They were making their way towards the stairs heading to the third floor when Petyr paused outside a door. Outside _the_ door. There was hardly a moment of consideration on the smell that would be released when Petyr twisted the handle. Sansa hadn’t the time to peek – he closed the door a second later.

            The lines on his face deepened.

            Nothing was _obviously_ wrong. Not until they got to the fourth floor.

            Sansa heard it as her feet brought her up the steps. A combination of white noises: static and wind. An eerie mixture that was definitely not as loud as the panic in her mind was making it out to be.

            The radio was thrown against a bookcase, its innards spilled across the floor. The remnants of a statue lay in the pool of wire and aluminum, with the final gasps of life echoing as static filtering towards Sansa. She approached it, fingering the machinery once containing those fortunate words that had brought her out of her tower. Its static was dying out, a faint whisper growing quieter with passing breaths.

            Petyr was focused on the _other_ noise. Sansa craned her neck to look past the furniture to where Petyr stood before the window. His body blocked view of whatever was affixed to the window. With a silent swear, his fingers tore the paper from the window.

            A crumpled paper that had been _stabbed_ into the glass. A fine spider-web reached out from the blade. Wind wriggled its way in through the cracks.

            Sansa approached. She hadn’t gotten to Petyr before she saw the final _discrepancy_. One that she was sure of, unlike than napkins or bottles or doors.

            Three coins sat upon the chessboard. Each marked with that dark, bloody X.

            Days ago, Petyr finally revealed the second coin, much to his reluctance. With the scant knowledge he provided at the time, Sansa only assumed the second was meant as a warning for urgency on his part. To provide the _service_ before Petyr himself met the same unfortunate end as the man downstairs.

            The threads in her mind were forming around the coins. Coins of promises meant to be kept – and punishments meant to be enacted, should the party not make due on the promise. The first: to aid the overthrow of the Lannisters as an _inside man_. That seemed easiest enough given his position at the heart of their city. And given the sort of _services_ Petyr provided the Lannisters and their men, it seemed easy to keep such a promise.

            The second: that was the warning, a combination of threat with the addition of the oh-so-kind _gift_ below. The game changed. The promises due by Petyr would not suffice; they wanted _more_. More than information, more than merely _promises_.

            Sansa. They wanted Sansa, and what she was rather than who. The North, forcibly removed from the frozen forests and mountains, and instead shoved in the unbearable environment of King’s Landing.

            Now the third…

            “What is it?” she asked. Her eyes lingered on the new coin, on the anticipation of something _else_ that neither she nor Petyr were willing to entertain.

            His fingers pressed tightly against the paper, which Sansa saw had pink fingerprints along an edge. She moved, peering over his arm to read the note:

            _You bastard keeping her to yourself this whole time. Bring by noon. Keep. pS: Poor fuck looked like he could use your company._

            She barely finished deciphering the crooked handwriting before Petyr balled the note and threw it against the glass. He strode to the window and stomped on the paper until it began to tear. Even then, his foot persisted.

            Sansa waited, letting Petyr _fume_ and direct his anger. Then she asked, wanting to confirm what it said: “He knows you have me.”

            Petyr only gave a sort of grunt in response. He had finished tormenting the paper, and stood staring out across the city.

            The middle part was clear – he wanted Petyr to deliver on his promise today. Sansa wasn’t sure of the time, but they at least had a few hours. She didn’t want to think how punctual they needed to be; whether there might have been something or someone else here, waiting for the clock to strike twelve before delivering punishment.

            That only left the PS. There was a guess formulating in Sansa’s mind. “Who… Who needed company?”

            She heard Petyr’s breathing mix with the wind seeping through the cracks. He was trying to quell the untamable rage within him. Rage, and fear. “His father.”

            Sansa furrowed her brows. “Who? The man under the sheet?” So he wasn’t some _random_ drunk, then.

            But Petyr shook his head. “Our… friend downstairs. The one strung up like your friend from the party.”

            Blood and twitching muscle flashed in her mind. Sansa tried to shake it away, moving to approach Petyr and focus on him and reality, not the past and death. “Who was the other man?”

            He shrugged. His breathing was even now. “A Northman. An acquaintance, perhaps. He was the lucky one.”

            To be shoved down a flight of stairs, whether knowing about it or not, didn’t seem lucky. He was dead, after all. But dead people didn’t scream when their flesh was torn apart or water was thrown to eat away towards bone.

            Should Sansa follow that sort of luck? End it now, four stories high, and embrace the quickness of the cobblestones. She wouldn’t even have to keep her eyes open; wouldn’t know when she would reunite with the ground.

            She would need the _luck_ of an outside push. And Sansa thought – no, _knew_ – that Petyr wouldn’t be the one to push her.

            Sansa gazed across King’s Landing. At the sun-bleached roofs, at the Bay off in the distance hugging the horizon. At the Keep, a soaring red streak against all the grey. She looked up. The sky was clear enough.

            “We could run for it.”

            Even as she spoke, doubt crept from the corners of her mind. Long, bony fingers reaching to tangle the mess of threads, pulling and pulling until her own body felt the shiver of fear pulse down her spine.

            They would need an infinite supply of luck to make it.

            In her periphery, Petyr’s head shook. “We couldn’t make it all the way North. He would follow us, trail us relentlessly. Day and night we’d have to run with an eye open. And even then, even if we make it North, sweetling… There’s no telling what sort of power he holds there now.”

            She knew. Those fingers had been weaving doubt in her mind, sowing the panic that rose at the thought of being chased for the rest of her life. Never having a moment’s peace – not until he found them and strung them up alive.

            Sansa just wanted it confirmed.

            If he could find them once, he wouldn’t stop until he found them again.

            The two of them stared out in silence, listening to the whistle of wind creep past the knife’s blade. Sansa absentmindedly traced the weaving lines across the glass, her fingers faint across the hairlines. She noticed then that they were dry. That he had only been here _after_ the rain had stopped this morning.

            Her finger’s stopped. By how long did they just miss each other? An hour? Half an hour? A minute?

            Had Sansa not carelessly wandered to view the _destruction_ in Joffrey’s apartments, they might have met.

            He would be back if they didn’t go to him.

            “What do we do?” It was barely a whisper, hardly a sound escaped her throat. Sansa pressed her forehead against the cool glass. Thinking and wondering if there was anything to be done. Thinking how long it would take to reach the ground from here.

            Petyr hadn’t spoken. He might not have heard her faint plea, might have been lost in his own shamble of threads and plans. Looking and relooking for that hidden golden thread buried beneath those of grey and red.

            He, too, had been tracing the spider-web.

            “We set a trap.” Petyr’s voice came out as quiet as hers. Sansa glanced over at him, but his eyes were firmly focused on the what-ifs past the window.

            “We won’t make it.” The cold fingers were wrapping around Sansa’s throat, reaching within to encase her lungs in frozen fire. No matter how fast she breathed, air wouldn’t fill.

            After everything they endured, everything they _survived_ – Sansa was still going to die.

            She felt fingers grasp at her shoulders. Fingers of fire and stone, gripping hard and shaking the ice from her lungs. Sansa saw the dark shadow of Petyr through the tears coating her eyes. She hadn’t realized she was crying.

            “Sweetling.” His voice was firm, a light guiding her away from the darkness and panic. “You want to see your home again. Winterfell. Your family. The North.”

            It wasn’t entirely a question, but Sansa nodded. She didn’t trust her throat to form words. The hands at her shoulders were rubbing warmth back into her body. Was it always so cold in here? She couldn’t remember.

            “Do it for your family, your home.” His voice was nearer now, she could feel whispers of his breath on her.

            Petyr went through the plan and the counterplan, thinking of ideas even as he spoke them.

            Sansa had to admit that it could work. They could make it out alive. But there were so many unknown threads that with a single tear would shatter their attempt catastrophically. So much was riding on whether or not Sansa could convince a complete stranger. Convince a complete psychopath.

            “What if we fail?” She could feel the snot trickling from her nose, fall across her lips. The last words caught in her throat: “What if we _die_?”

            Petyr’s fingers were warm against her skin, wiping the wayward tears and snot and fear from her flesh. His fingers were fighting an endless battle against the claws of panic that were a pestering stab throughout her body. She didn’t know who would win.

            “If we die,” he began, bringing his lips to stop the tears falling from her eyes. Small, lingering kisses at the corner of one eye, then the other. Petyr’s fingers held her face in that warm, _familiar_ embrace. Sansa finally opened her eyes, looking at him and seeing the fear etched in his face, too. “If we die, then we die together. And we make sure we take him down with us.”

* * *

            Sansa couldn’t help but notice how many more bodies littered the streets towards the Keep. How the bodies she had seen on her way out from the Keep were nothing but piles of broken bones and tattered clothes, held together with a rotten semblance of bone and flesh.

            Something about heading towards the towering spires seemed _surreal_. About being so close to them now, and viewing them as the monstrous peaks from the ground rather than the red streaks from a distance. Perhaps it was the crimson hue that gave it its eerie appearance.

            She never gave a single thought to coming back, not after everything that happened. And here she was. Walking straight into the Lion’s den.

            Except the Lions were dead. Were any of them still alive, it would be a cruel miracle.

            Sansa and Petyr climbed the sloped path winding its way towards the Keep. They moved slowly, avoiding rain and blood and flesh. But they also moved slowly because of the incline, and the fear that their makeshift boots wouldn’t support them. Sansa thought on the practicality of winter boots and winter clothes, if only to keep her mind preoccupied.

            It didn’t help much.

            Nothing was certain. They were walking into a pit of death and fear, with nothing but a plan formed in their minds and hardly any assurances that it would work. And for all Sansa knew, the two of them were heading towards a far worse trap than anything they concocted.

            Was there anything worse than all of this? All of this rain and death and exchange of power? With Sansa Stark at the center of it all.

            Her mind travelled back to that more often than she was keen to admit. That despite what Petyr said or what measures went awry – that every thread wound its way back to Petyr. And, by extension, back to her.

             They were at least halfway up the path when Sansa heard a growl. Something low and hungry. She froze, panic rising through her limbs and chest.

            But the hound was interested in _easier_ prey.

            A faceless body, with arms easily torn apart by teeth and an insatiable appetite. The dog watched as Petyr gently nudged Sansa to continue, to ignore the beast lying off the path. The beast gnawing at an arm and staring with coal eyes. Waiting for a sign to attack.

            It wasn’t the only one. Sansa then realized that three other dogs meandered over the lawns, satisfying themselves with the dead. She wondered how easy it would be for them to forgo the bodies and charge upon the living.

            Petyr guided Sansa the rest of the way up, her feet leaden. For every whisper of “I can’t do this, please Petyr,” he responded in kind with “Yes you can, sweetling. It will be fine, we’ll make it through.”

            No amount of kind words quenched the voices of doubt.

            They reached the main entrance, crossing the threshold into no-going-back territory. And still, no other signs of human life were to be seen.

            Sansa strained her ears and eyes, focusing despite the incessant urge to _run_. Exploring for the unkind man she was long promised to, without her knowledge or good-will.

            How different would life have been had the Lannisters acted as they _should_? As they had against the Krakens – ravaging the North with madness until only embers and corpses littered the mountains and fields.

            A queen of ashes and death. That’s what was promised to Sansa.

            Instead, the Lions showed _mercy_ , and allowed her family to live regardless of the blatant shouts of rebellion coursing through the land. A mercy that led to this.

            Her heart pounded in her chest, her throat, her mind. She swore it echoed in the cavernous entrance, beating through the walls and the floor. A signal of an intruder. Of a _promise_ finally brought to fruition.

            She heard the faint screaming first. Then the grating laughter.

            A part of Sansa was expecting a different laugh. A mocking sneer hiding the lust of power beneath his skin. And the pure lust behind golden eyes – never viewing Sansa as a human, but as a _thing_. A thing the Lions won and paraded for all the world to see. A thing to lust for in envy.

            Sansa turned towards the echoes. She felt Petyr’s fingers rest at the small of her back. Not pushing, not forcing her to follow the echoes down and down into insanity and suicide. A press to reaffirm. As if to say without words: it’ll be alright.

            They followed the noise that bounced about the halls. A grating mixture of joy and despair that all together seemed so foreign and wrong. Yet, not at all, not in a world that’s crumbled to this.

            Sansa knew of the dungeons, of the cavernous halls and winding stairs that led into the underbelly where Dragons once explored their madness. She only assumed the whispers of them were false. That the _purpose_ of those dark, depressing rooms had ended as the king’s head fell from shoulders. Sansa shivered at the thought that during her brief stay up above, others weren’t so lucky in their accommodations below. Wondering if the night winds carried more than the breeze from the Bay.

            Had Sansa and Petyr not heard the din, they could have instead followed the bodies trailing towards the dungeon entrance. A messy assortment of persons subjected to the water after the initial downpour. People that would have given anything to have fallen the first night.

            When they reached the entrance – an unassuming door was set crooked on its hinges, one that Sansa was sure she had passed by several times before without realizing – Sansa felt the coils of fear and panic and the unknown wrap ever tighter. How could they know their plan would work? That the _monster_ responsible would succumb without casualty?

            That Sansa wouldn’t give the game away before that?

            “Sweetling?” Petyr asked, a whisper against her ear. A hidden question of: are you ready? Are you prepared for our narrow outcome of survival?

            Sansa nodded, listening to a winding, guttural growl make its way up through the darkened staircase. It hardly sounded human – but it was.

            Petyr wove his hand through the back of her hair, twisting her braid around his wrist as if to keep Sansa on a _leash_. To give the impression she was under his control. She felt tears stinging the corners of her eyes as they began their descent.

            Darkness engulfed her, inside and out. Sansa didn’t feel the cold dampness of the dungeons, or the pricking of Petyr’s fingers digging into her scalp. All there was was the tightness in her chest, the thrumming of blood in her head. Her breaths came out short and fast. They hardly descended before she felt terror rising from her stomach and lodging in her throat.

            On and on they followed the terrible echoes. There were rooms they passed with doors open – a glimmer of long-dried blood coating walls and floor. Other rooms were filled with shelves, now empty. Madness, once stored and waiting, now unleashed across Westeros. Sansa wondered how much was required to dissolve the Krakens, and how much else was used for other purposes. Whether madness had been unleashed elsewhere on the country without it known. Whether the North met the same fate as the Iron Islands and King’s Landing.

            There was at least one room filled not with emptiness – jars or pots, a film of dust and death covering the clay. Sansa was reminded of her school lessons on mummification. Thinking how the jars were just the size for a brain or heart.

            A dog barked. Sansa jumped, yelping as her scalp pulled from the hand coiled around her hair. The pain was a momentary release of the hold of fear coiling in her chest. But as fast as it left, it came back.

            The screaming had stopped; the laughter too. Footsteps padded towards her. A low whistle echoed in the hall, and the dog sat on its haunches. It stared at Sansa, observing her. Waiting for a single wrong move before sinking its teeth into her screaming flesh.

            “Well, well, well. Look who the fuck it is. Took you long enough.”

            His face was ordinary. He could have been anyone in King’s Landing or the North or all of Westeros. But it was those _eyes_ – dark and wild, staring at Sansa with a terrible mixture of anticipation and excitement. Scanning her like all men do as a thing to be won and had. Yet under that blatant desire was something far _worse_ that she hadn’t a word for.

            Those were eyes that Sansa recognized from their brief encounter a week ago. Sansa saw the glass fall six floors. Saw this awkward boy attempt at a flirtation, at an implication of something more. Remembered the way he laughed as the mortified howl of a _dying wolf_ escaped his lips.

            Oh, how she should have known.

            His lips were as terrible as his eyes. Coiled and twisted, a dark grin alluding to the sorts of _fun_ he was imagining with his shiny new plaything. Hand-delivered and wrapped in a garbage bag.

            Perhaps Joffrey would have been the lesser of two evils. Not perhaps – he would have been.

            Sansa felt a small tug at the back of her head. This was no time for fear – she and Petyr were in the middle of the game. Two pieces plunged far into enemy territory, with only one sliver means of escape. So close to the edge of the board was she. One wrong move was all it would take. Sansa forced the fear away, clamped it down deep within her. Forced a smile, forced herself to assess the boy with the same hunger that was in his eyes.

            She had to play the game.

            “Breaking into my club _again_ was a bit unnecessary, don’t you think?”

            The air of familiarity on Petyr’s words threatened to bring the fear back. It was a game, a ruse, she had to remind herself. Petyr loathed him, and he loathed Petyr, too. The only thing keeping the two from each other’s necks was the shiny, red-headed toy to be passed from one owner to the next.

            Sansa couldn’t ignore the ease with which Petyr traded himself. From a rook or bishop to a lowly pawn. She could do the same. She could try. She had to.

            The newcomer’s gaze flitted to Petyr, giving him a simple once-over on the attire that fit over both of them. “It got my point across, didn’t it?” He moved back to Sansa. “Plus, it would be wrong not say hello to the old man, right? After he tried to warn people – definitely shouldn’t have done that.”

            Sansa tried to hide the disgust in her face. She felt Petyr’s grip on her hair tighten, wondering if he was having as difficult a time pretending as she around such a despicable person.

            “No, but it’s still wrong to leave him dying like that. What happened to ‘Northern decency’ and all that crap?”

            The boy laughed, a hideous sound. “ _Fuck_ the North and their decency. Shoulda got what’s coming for them.”

            Petyr shifted beside her. “And they _would have_ , if you didn’t fuck up the plans.”

            What? 

            He laughed again, the boy with wild hair and empty eyes. He moved to lean against the doorjamb, revealing only a sliver of what was in the room behind him. A mirror of those torture rooms she passed on the way here. But Sansa couldn’t make out the _source_ of the noise from earlier. The boy was picking filth from under fingernails with a small knife. “That plan was shit. The damn North would’ve rallied their grannies to stop the Lannisters. They would’ve been lucky to make it to Moat Cailin before surrendering. Even with their madness.”

            “That was the point.” Petyr’s fingers were digging harder into her scalp. She wanted to look at him, to figure out what was going through his mind. Which of the infinite threads he conveniently _forgot_ to tell her. “The madness should have been with them. And yet, before they even got to the Moat, it disappeared.”

            The boy only grinned at that.

            So it was true. The Lions’ plan to eliminate their northern brethren. To shatter the cause and the people of the North with the same water used to break the Krakens.

            Only the water never made it North. The Lions did, and on their journey back they brought Sansa.

            He worked at the other hand. Sansa saw the flecks of red on the boy’s skin and nails, the flecks of gods-knew what else. He let the silence drag on, cleaning and inspecting each nail as though he had all the time in the world.

            Finally satisfied, he pocketed the knife. His head cocked towards Sansa, glancing over her body again before speaking. “This is _sooo_ much better, though. You get what you want – the Lannisters good and dead, the dumb fucks. And I get what I want.”

            His fingers were calloused and warm against Sansa’s wrist. The touch was soft, almost gentle, almost something that would be given between _lovers_ and not a victor sizing up his spoils of war. Was this a war? A war where Sansa herself was the key piece. The piece setting both sides battling for the right to claim her and what she held: the North. All of its lands and people and economy.

            Petyr’s voice was low. “I don’t think you’re quite deserving of your _prize_ after all the shit you’ve done.”

            The pad of the boy’s thumb was brushing over her veins in slow strokes. So opposite the look and crooked set in his face, in his eyes. “Then why did you bring her if not to reward me for a job well done.”

            Sansa felt like throwing up. She tamped it down, along with the voices shouting within her blood to get out while she still breathed.

            “Thought you might kill me if I showed up empty-handed.” The boy laughed at that. “Besides, I have a few questions before I hand her over.”

            Petyr please, she begged in her head. Sansa’s own thoughts were a thunderous plea she hoped he heard. Please don’t leave me alone with him. Please please _please_.

            “Shoot.”

            “How’d you manage to get the water in the clouds? I thought the Lannisters were still working on it.”

            “They were.” He shrugged. “Maybe the machines got tired of those fucking Lions and their empty threats. But it fucking worked spectacularly, wouldn’t you agree?”

            So it wasn’t an accident. The Lions had _planned_ this, been planning for something like this for years. A device capable forcing clouds to form and rain onto the earth. Mixed with whatever bacteria was in the madness. Poisoning crops and cattle, wrecking havoc from above without so much a thought of fear from puffy clouds.

            Were they working on it to take down the North? To assuage fears of a rebellion by completely eliminating the rebellious itch?

            Petyr only gave an uninterested _hmm_ before continuing. “How far does it reach? Only King’s Landing, or has it managed to fly south or north or across the sea?”

            “Fuck if I know.” The boy was growing bored with the questioning, Sansa could see it on his face and in the growing pressure on her wrist. He was traveling the edge of a fingernail over her skin now. “Don’t think it got very far, not as far as the North at least.”

            One of the infinite coils surrounding Sansa’s heart loosened. Her home, her family – they were okay. They hadn’t met their end like the thousands of innocents here.

            She wondered if Petyr asked that question for his curiosity or to soothe the fears inside her.

            Petyr was about to ask something else before the boy interrupted. “If you’re worried about this shithole not having a bastard, you’re in luck.” He was moving back into the room, carrying Sansa with him. Petyr had to follow too, but she felt the grip on her braid loosen. She wanted to reach back and grab onto Petyr, to make sure he wasn’t going to leave her. Not now, not ever.

            “This fucker,” he went on, “almost got himself killed. Figured it’d be so _kind_ to save him.”

            It wasn’t _kind_. Far from it.

            Sansa wished she could have warned him. Dragged him inside the Keep with her, even if it meant a series of bruises unconcealed by clothes. He was a terrible person, she knew from experience. He was going to be a terrible ruler once he graduated from university, urged on by a terrible mother and grandfather. He was going to be a terrible husband, and a terrible father.

            But a terrible person like Joffrey did not deserve this.

            Both grips – her wrist and hair – tightened at the sight of the boy strapped to the wall. Joffrey’s face was left alone, dirt and tears and vomit staining his lips and cheeks and hair. One ear was forcibly lopsided, the lobe poked and peeled away. Through the open, pained expression he wore, Sansa could tell several teeth were missing. None from the front – that would be too obvious. Trails of blood fell from his mouth.

            His chest moved in the slightest. Alive – but at what cost, to sanity and pain?

            It would be kind of Sansa to _end it_.

            The rest of his body was a nightmare. She couldn’t bear to describe it – the horrors brought on by a rusty knife or a hound’s jaw or the water. She wanted to look away, to wrap herself in Petyr’s arms and feel his hands comb through her hair, like he had that morning. To let him take away the fear and the pain and the horrors of the world. To forget everything.

            Sansa forced herself to _look_. That’s what he wanted, Petyr advised her. Someone just as terrible and wicked as him. Someone who was itching to maim and disfigure, hiding her true self beneath countless layers of _please_ s and _thank you_ s and innocent eyes.

            Sansa looked into the wild boy’s eyes – straight into the endless depth of darkness and delight – and gave him the twisted smile he wanted. “You missed his face,” she said.

            He grinned back at her, moving his body closer. A kindred spirit. “I know, and faces are one of the best way to make people scream. But a kingdom needs a king. Can’t have this fucker ruling without the pretty face attached to it.”

            He brought Sansa’s hand to his lips and placed the softest kiss upon her skin.

            She stared at the back of her hand, at the faint mark, wondering if her flesh was going to burn and fall apart from his touch. As if his body was oozing the same death found in the water.

            Sansa looked at him again. “What was your name again? Something to do with fluffy sheep?”

            The clouds. The white puffs encroaching over the Bay, appearing one at a time until merging into the darkened terror looming over the city. The fading screams of the dying as she climbed the stairs to her rooms. She could never forget that.

            He laughed. “Might’ve been a bit drunk. It’s Ramsay.”

            “Rams, like the sheep,” she remembered. Sansa had half a mind to do the terrible bleating impression he had when they met. She had almost forgotten where she was, who was standing before her. Almost. “I’m Sansa.”

            “Of course it is,” Ramsay said. “No man worth his dick could forget a face like that.” His gaze moved behind her, towards Petyr. An expression of _Am I right?_ plastered on his pale skin. She saw a smudge of blood wiped across his temple. Not _his_ blood, Sansa thought.

            She forced herself to look Ramsay up and down as he did her. To assess the sort of person he was, to see whether or not she would be able to pull this off. Good gods, she wasn’t sure.

            Sansa felt the fingers in her hair loosen one at a time, slowly, not wanting to completely _let go_. Petyr’s hand moved to her shoulder, a tentative hold. His voice was low, possessive, breath falling upon Sansa’s skin. Petyr wasn’t that close – only her body felt as unwilling for him to leave as he was. “If you mess up anything else, I’ll see to it you meet as pleasant an end as the city. Or as this Lion, depending how generous I’m feeling.”

            “Try me, old fuck.” Ramsay tugged at Sansa’s wrist, fingers digging into her skin. Almost over the dark marks that were gone – the marks Joffrey had given her such a long time ago. Now they were going to come back under the guise of a new _master_. A row of shackles, the weight unbearable.

            Petyr let her go.

            Sansa kept her expression and body uncaring. She didn’t care about Petyr leaving her alone with this _monster_ , didn’t mind that the sort of person he willingly sold her to murdered thousands for the thrill of hearing their voices yell out pleas for help.

            Of course she cared. But Sansa didn’t look back.

            Petyr’s feet were still echoing down the dark hall when she moved to approach Joffrey’s dying body. She didn’t look, not with her eyes, looking instead past the physical body before her. She couldn’t imagine Ramsay leaving Joffrey alive. Nor could she imagine anyone wanting to stay and rule in King’s Landing. A city of emptiness, of the dead and dying. Of survivors fighting for scraps of food rather than humanity.

            Time. That’s what they needed now. Sansa could give him time.

            Sansa ran a delicate finger across the arm, from shoulder to fingertip. Joffrey’s body shuddered at her touch, fear coursing through his veins rather than any semblance of excitement or pleasure. She wondered if he could see her through the dirt and tears crusting around his eyes. If he had heard them, heard the voice of his once future-wife.

            If he was afraid of what she would do to him, with the roles reversed now.

            She matched the smile on Ramsay’s face as she turned to him. He was approaching her, the knife still held in his hand. Sansa wanted to throw up. “Now that it’s just the _three_ of us,” she began, reaching for Ramsay’s arm. Her fingers travelled down to his palm, tracing across knuckles to trail the warm, metal. Sansa remembered a housemaid scolding a brother – that should they play with _swords_ and weapons (and should they actually _attack_ with them), that the metal better be clean and sharp. That way the wound would be clean, and the pain lessened. The blade Ramsay held was rusted from time and filth. Sansa brought her eyes from the blade’s tip up and up to meet Ramsay’s. “How about we have a little _fun_ first.”

            She hated herself, hated the disgusting grin that spread from Ramsay’s lips to across his face. “What sort of _fun_ did you have in mind?”

            Sansa palmed his hand and the dagger, her fingernail circling the tip of the metal. She felt how dull it was, imagined how much pain it would bring. Sansa smiled. “Did you know that this _thing_ behind me…” she paused. “He wanted to fuck me dead with all of his friends. He was just _waiting_ for a reason.”

            Ramsay laughed. “I’ve already cut his dick off, though.”

            She tried to hide the flicker of terror on her face. Her eyes moved from the knife, to Ramsay, to Joffrey, and back. “How else can we punish him for all the threats and remarks he made at me?” Back into those dark, soulless eyes. Sansa stepped closer, their chests nearly pressed together. The roiling thoughts in her mind played at the assumption she was sure of about Ramsay. About what he wanted from her. “How would you punish someone who _did_ fuck your wife?”

            Sansa had a feeling, somewhere, that Ramsay wouldn’t care, now or in the future. That perhaps if someone _did_ attack her or touch her, Ramsay would only laugh that terrible cackle.

            But there was the other feeling she realized. When Petyr was still behind her; when she wasn’t all alone with a mass murderer.

            Ramsay confirmed it. His gaze travelled from Sansa to Joffrey, lingering on the infinite wounds he inflicted. On the infinite many more he would before night arrived. There it was, as clear as water: that _possessiveness_ streaking his eyes.

            He didn’t care about Sansa, not at all. He cared for what she could bring him. As a thing to advance his own cause. And he would certainly care about anyone willing to touch and abuse his things.

            Sansa wasn’t a _thing_.

            She moved Ramsay’s head back to look at her. His skin was hot, flushed with anger and excitement, she was sure. Sansa brought forth the underlying hatred and fear and panic that was coiling within her. Letting it coat her words: “What’s the best way for me to hurt someone who’s hurt me?”

            His teeth were revealed in a feral sort of smile, like an animal who caught sight of a formidable prey and was enjoying the thrill of the chase. Ramsay wanted someone like him: someone despicable and willing to not just tolerate his gruesome acts, but someone willing to join in.

            Sansa could do it. She _had_ to.

            Ramsay gripped her face, mimicking the hold Sansa had on his. His fingers were rough, calloused, biting into her flesh. He brought her head towards his, a fraction of an inch separating their skin, their lips. He gazed down at her, grinning in delight. “Depends. Fucking another man’s wife is a terrible thing to do.” Closer, noses barely brushing. “Especially if that other man is me.”

            Sansa pushed his head away with her hand, away from her and back towards Joffrey. Deflecting the boy’s attention if only for a little while. “What’s the best way for someone to get payback who hasn’t given much payback before?” The grin was still plastered on Ramsay, an insufferable and hideous crook to his face. Sansa hated it. It was the physical reminder of what she was doing, who she was pretending to be. If only Ramsay was the person chained and broken – perhaps then Sansa would feel an ounce less of disgust.

            “We’ll start with the basics. A proper wife of mine needs to learn how take what she wants, and make men plea for mercy.” He dropped his grip from her face, grabbing for the hand that was holding his jaw. Ramsay peeled her fingers away and set the rusted knife in her palm.

            They approached Joffrey, and Sansa was certain she saw the muscles in his chest and arms recoil. As if they already knew what was coming. Conditioned to fear whenever Ramsay drew near.

            She couldn’t imagine doing anything _substantial_ to him. To this once-proud Lion chained so meekly. “It’s my first time,” she said, knowing full well the intended innocence played under the words. “How about his hands? For striking me, for groping at me.”

            Sansa made up the _fucking your wife_ , bit. Ramsay didn’t have to know that. But he was there at the party – he was there when Joffrey slammed Sansa into the elevator, when he yelled and threatened her with unspoken words. Her revenge would be justified. This was never how she imagined it; not this sort of revenge.

            Still she went through with it.

            Ramsay illustrated how to peel away the skin of a finger. The angle of the blade at the knuckle, the slow drag of the tip down the length. Explaining how the fingernail could be removed before or after – either way would hurt like hell. He went so far to provide examples: a finger with muscle and flesh cleanly split, and another with less finesse. Sansa couldn’t be sure which was more _effective_ , given the terrible choking sobs and pleas that fell from Joffrey’s cracked lips. Some were barely more than a whisper.

            It was her turn. Sansa removed herself from the act, allowing her body to replicate the steps and not think about the implication of what she was doing. Who she was peeling skin away from.

            But it was difficult to remove herself from the moment with Ramsay beside her. With the press of his fingers into her hand, guiding her own to strike and trail at the _right_ angle and with the _right_ force. His lips breathed onto her ear, describing the procedure, laughing whenever Joffrey let out a particularly painful scream. Ramsay’s other hand never strayed from her hip – a weighted, demanding press into soft flesh.

            The fluttering in her stomach was far from what she felt with Petyr. This was worse. An extension of the voice yelling in her mind – run run run run run.

            To her credit, Sansa didn’t throw up.

            She finished, dropping the torn flesh with the others on the floor. She felt as the blood trailed down her fingers and dripped off into the unknown.

            Ramsay patted Joffrey’s face. Sansa thought he had fallen into unconsciousness from the fear and the pain, but he flinched at the contact. The Lion looked so hopeless. “Don’t touch my shit again, bastard.” Ramsay laughed again – always laughing at the pain he inflicted. For good measure, he prodded at a gash running down the length of Joffrey’s chest. The louder Joffrey screamed, the louder Ramsay laughed.

            Sansa hated the sound, both of them. She couldn’t decide which was worse. “Why didn’t you kill him?”

            Ramsay could have. He was there, he was _waiting_. Biding his time with the other people at the party, playing with them and reveling in their fear.

            Ramsay was still poking at the bloodied wounds, investigating which produced the best sounds. “Still need the bastard. A shame – he’s a piece of shit. But at least he gave me something to do while I waited.”

            Waited for Petyr to deliver on his promise. Sansa had to wonder just how long he would have waited – if the threat he delivered was only a warning. Or if he had been monitoring them the whole time. “What do you need a bastard for? He never did much for the city but get drunk.” Part of her hated the indifference in her voice.

            “He’s a right bastard, that’s true.” Ramsay was using the butt of another blade, now. A particularly nasty gash tinged in green had flesh flaking off from the mere press of the handle. But Ramsay went ahead and shoved it deep into the wound. He cackled. “That fucker Petyr said we could use him as a scapegoat or something. Or at least, before I went and killed everyone.” Another prod, another scream, another laugh. “Not our problem, though. The South can go fuck itself, honestly.”

            The South… which meant the North was a different business entirely. The North, the Starks. Her family.

            Sansa watched in a removed state, a smile spread across her lips and a fire burning in her eyes. A mask.

            The mask was cracking in hairlines. The North and the Wolves and her home. Her future, tainted and destroyed by this boy with no emotions.

            “What about my family?”

            She hadn’t meant for it to slip. The crack in the façade was visible, growing, spreading and threatening to completely shatter. Sansa felt the coils tighten and tighten. Her heart wanted to beat itself free; wanted to shut down and wither to nothing.

            Ramsay looked at her, the blade stopped halfway through a wound. He didn’t gaze across her body, but stared at the girl before him. Observing that crack spread and shift.

            She spoke, and hated every word. “What sorts of punishments do you have planned for them?”

            An eyebrow rose. The mask was slowly reforming, but pieces were missing.

            Sansa moved towards him, resting a hand on the blade’s handle. Her voice reluctantly continued: “They _sold_ me to the Lannisters. To save their skin, they threw me out. How am I supposed to repay them?”

            Not like this, never like this.

            Her eyes moved from his to the blade and back. She licked her lips, a slow move from one side to the other. A small, terrible voice in her head was directing her hand to remove the blade from Joffrey’s chest and plunge it somewhere else. Ramsay’s. Her own.

            She didn’t.

            The mask was set in place again. Ramsay moved his free hand to grip hers that was placed over the knife. A hard press over flesh, the blood on his hands mixing with the forgotten crimson on hers. Even if Sansa survived, this would never leave her. The pain she inflicted for _enjoyment_ – she was sure Joffrey’s screaming would haunt her in whichever hell she wound up.

            “I’m sure we’ll think of a _delightful_ way to get your revenge.” He moved his head closer, dark eyes never breaking contact. “We have the rest of our lives to make them _pay_.”

            Ramsay moved to close the distance between their faces. Sansa jerked her head back, speaking in deflection: “Have you ever sat on the old Dragon throne?”

            Ramsay stared at her with an incredulous look. “Yeah, a couple times. There’s not much shit to do here. Sitting on a cold-ass chair is hardly as fun as being down here.”

            The voice in her head was urging her away from the thought in her mind. But Sansa willfully ignored it. She had to do it – she hated it, herself. Sana ran a hand through his dark hair. Streaks of red traced her path, from temple to nape of neck. Sansa gripped the shorter hairs there, tugging back, not caring on how hard she pulled. A part of her wanted to pull and pull until his head fell from shoulders. Their eyes never broke. “Have you ever wanted to fuck someone on that chair?”

            The excitement, the _desire_ burning in those two endlessly dark eyes. They managed to grow darker.

            Ramsay stabbed the blade into Joffrey’s shoulder. The yelp of pain echoed in the room, breaking Sansa from her façade for a moment. Ramsay was intent – presented with something desperately wanted, images of Sansa flooding his mind. But Sansa knew they couldn’t remain as images. Not now.

            He grabbed her by the arm, a rough grip, pulling her from the dungeon. The dog waiting by the door whined as Ramsay kicked it out of the way. Nothing would stop the boy from the desire coursing in his body – not even the hound, who was the closest thing he had to a friend. It was sad, in a way. She thought it was sad for two seconds. Before Sansa remembered the sort of person Ramsay was. If he _had_ any human friend, they would have wound up as Joffrey for speaking out of line.

            Ramsay was practically dragging Sansa through the halls, leading her through the maze beneath the Keep. She hardly had time to peer and see one of the rooms she passed on the way down empty now.

            Left and right and right and up. Stairs ending too quickly. The reemergence of the real world. She looked down towards the direction through the Keep that would lead her through the front doors – that would lead her to safety.

            Sansa gazed about the room. No one in sight. No one _alive_.

            She felt the panic spread through her veins, turning blood to ice. Felt her chest rise and fall from the fear of being left behind. Left behind with a maniacal boy determined to abuse and kill and fuck to his heart’s content.

            Petyr really did leave her.

            Sansa didn’t pay attention to the path they took towards the heart of the red Keep. Didn’t pay attention to the bodies that littered the floor, nearly colliding with several.

            All she knew was the sinking feeling in her chest. That what Sansa had just done in the dungeon – what she was _about to do_ on the throne – would be her present and future.

            Stark to Lannister to Baelish to Bolton.

            Perhaps she could trip and crack her neck on the way there. Fall down the stairs. Run out into an oncoming storm. _Anything_.

            The faint patter of water against the heavy walls of the Keep brought her out of her thoughts. Sansa had stopped moving. She looked up. They were there – the old throne room, a large hall filled with dust and marble stained with blood. Through the high windows Sansa saw the faint spatter of raindrops against the panes, saw the sudden heaviness of the clouds beyond.

            She was trapped with Ramsay. No one was going to save her.

            Sansa’s free hand was still gripping the bloody knife. She moved to slowly sheath it in a pocket as her feet followed Ramsay to the throne.

            She had only been here once, with Joffrey. He detested the semblance of democracy after the reign of Dragons. Wished he had been born into the Targaryan line, when they were the feared monstrosities of human torture and killing. Joffrey had sat himself on the throne, looking out into the room, and imagined himself the king of all of Westeros. He left Sansa at the foot of the stairs.

            Ramsay was setting himself upon the cold metal. “Fucking uncomfortable. No wonder the damned Dragons all went mad.” He fingered the protruding spikes of the throne. Sansa saw the sliver of blood trickle down his skin. He let it.

            “Now, my lovely Sansa,” he said, patting a thigh with the bleeding hand. There wasn’t anything _human_ in his gaze – not like there ever was. “We’ve got at least an hour till the rain stops. Let’s see if we can get King’s Landing to hear what a Wolf sounds like.”

            Sansa was standing at the base of the steps, staring at the hand Ramsay was motioning her with. The rain was growing louder with every passing heartbeat. A thunderous echo in time with the blood pumping within her veins. Soon, she might not even hear her own screaming.

            Run, the voice was telling her.

            She took the first step towards the throne. Another. Sansa copied the wicked smile on Ramsay’s own lips, letting her eyes work over his body as he was doing to her. But she wasn’t assessing him as a thing to be had. Rather, Sansa was assessing whether or not she would manage to succeed. To escape.

            Ramsay moved to the edge of the throne, his legs positioned such that it easy to straddle over them. Sansa set herself by his knees. One of his greedy hands grabbed her by the ass and pulled her, pressing their chests together. The other clung at her hair, where the braid was tied at her scalp. His fingers dug harshly into her flesh. Pulling at the hair and skin with one hand, and desperately pushing her body into his with the other.

            Tears stung the corners of Sansa’s eyes. From the pain at her scalp. From the fear in her chest. From the prospect of a lonely and terrible existence.

            His lips crashed into hers, a harsh, greedy press. Ramsay was already rocking into her, the hands on her body pushing and pulling hard enough for her mouth to open. For his tongue to enter and invade and claim.

            Sansa had to hold onto him. Had to let herself go.

            She could impale herself on the throne. On the numerous blades and spikes edging the chair. An accident – a wrong move in a fit of passion. Bleeding to death atop a boy who would probably use her body until it was solidly cold and empty.

            He needed her. Her claim. He wouldn’t let her die. Would he?

            A faint _hiss_ echoed beneath the rain. The rain grew in force, in sound. A mimic for the passion swirling from Ramsay and into his motions.

            Sansa lowered a hand. Ramsay was swearing into her mouth, biting at her lips. There was the taste of metal between their tongues. His hands and body were moving faster, pressing harder. The fingers at her back were digging beneath the fabric to press and scratch and explore her unmarred skin. She knew he wouldn’t leave her without staining her skin in bruises and blood.

            Sansa brought her hand back up. Slamming it into his chest.

            Ramsay howled in pain.

            Sansa jumped back, tripping over his legs and the damned blades on the throne. Her pants tore, she might have been bleeding. She didn’t care. She had to get out _now_.

            The knife missed his heart.

            “You fucking _bitch_!”

            Sansa found her legs, stumbling on her way down the steps. The throne room was big, too big. She wasn’t going to make it. Sansa could hear him moving already. Chasing after his bride, a dagger embedded in his chest. Another series of swears – Ramsay caught himself on the throne, too.

            Her heart was beating in time with the voice – run Sansa run. The voice was shouting, echoing.

            There was a numb throb in her leg and arm. Blood mixed with sweat and adrenaline. She didn’t care about it.

            She was halfway now. So close to freedom. So far from safety.

            A hand pulled her back.

            “You. Fucking. Bitch.” Ramsay punctuated the final word with a resounding slap to her face. Sansa spiraled to the ground. Her head collided with the marble. Swirls of black and white mixed in her vision of red and black.

            Another punch to the face. Her head bounced off the marble. The swirls grew. Red crept further in her vision.

            Sansa tried to move, to crawl away. Her body screamed, her head pounded louder than the rain.

            She was finally going to die.

            Blood and tears coated her face. She managed to make out Ramsay through the haze. He was reaching in his boot – a knife. Small, sharp, deadly.

            Sansa knew exactly the sort of torture he could do to her. What he _was_ going to do.

            If she was lucky, she would wind up like Joffrey.

            If the gods were exceptionally kind, Ramsay would kill her.

            Red and black and white clouded her vision. There was a pain in her chest, her neck, her arms. Everything was on fire, everything was screaming for it to end.

            Beneath the throbbing and the pounding and the fear; beneath her screaming and Ramsay’s swearing and the endless drumming of rain echoing – Sansa heard her name.

            Perhaps the gods _were_ kind.

            A _bang_ echoed against the marbled floor and walls.

            Sansa felt and tasted blood.

            Something was grabbing at her, yelling at her. Pain shot through Sansa’s body. Everything was too loud and too terrible.

            A massive explosion ripped through the room.

            Green and white cut through the red and black.

            There was so much screaming.

            So much blood.

            And darkness.

* * *

            She was dead.

            She had to be.

            Better dead than forever entwined with that _monster_.

            Somehow, death sounded an awful lot like it was raining.          

            An incessant pounding. Low echoes through her brain.

            And it was cold. That, Sansa was sure of. At least one of the seven hells had to be cold. Sansa belonged there for the rest of her life. For what she just did, for all of the things she _didn’t_ do. The unspoken words, the untaken actions.

            If she had another day on earth, Sansa would go back and end things.

            Say all the _thank you_ s that needed to be spoken.

            All the _sorry_ s, too. Plenty of those.

            And the unkind words, too. The _I hate you_ s. But only words – never action, never the sort of torture she wasn’t inexperienced with now.

            She thought on it all. One day might not be enough for everything Sansa wished she could say and do.

            But she _did_ have the time for words. An entire week. Filled with the silence of the words that crept on her lips. The words she should have spoken before her death.

            Her mind faded into the pounding rain.

* * *

            Sansa opened her eyes.

            It was raining.

            She choked back something that might have been a sob. A cry of pain, or a cry of relief. A cry of despair – she wasn’t dead.

            She should have been.

            Sansa tried to move, to sit up, but her body was screaming. Everything was crying out for the finality of death, for the pain to end. Her skin felt like it was on fire – felt like it was being eaten alive. She tried to scratch at it, to end the burn. To rip out her skin and the invisible fire.

            Someone moved.

            Ramsay… Of course he wouldn’t have been dead, she thought. The tears fell without provocation. If Sansa were alive, Ramsay would be too. Glad to have her awake to continue her punishment for trying to kill him.

            She was _stupid_. To think she could take on a man that killed thousands without so much as a shred of concern in his mind. To think that the knife would find its home straight into his heart.

            There was a hand on her shoulder, a voice in the distance.

            “Please…” Sansa managed. Her throat was so dry. She wanted to claw it out, too. “Just kill me. Please.”

            The gods weren’t kind after all. Why would Sansa expect anything different?

            Her sobs were a mangled sound, mixing with the rain. Mixing with the unknown voice trying to reach her. There was another hand on her cheek, a soft press against skin. Sansa’s skin was so hot that the Ramsay’s hand felt cool to the touch.

            She was burning up.

            Maybe she finally was going to die. Her body just needed a little longer to fully incinerate.

            “Sansa.”

            Her cries stopped for a second. The hand on her face felt _warm_ now.

            A gentle finger brushed at her eyes, wiping the flood of tears from her vision. One eye, the other. Back and forth until finally the water subsided enough for her to see–

            “Petyr,” she whispered.

            Sansa made out the faint turn of a smile on his lips. She looked further up, into the soft, mossy eyes. Eyes rimmed with a dark tiredness and fear. Eyes that were finally breaking free of the darkness that enveloped the person behind them.

            He was alive. She was alive.

            “What…?” Sansa began, her voice turning into a choking sob. Her throat was so painful, she wouldn’t have managed to form any other words.

            Petyr was kneeling beside her, his hands never leaving her. “He’s dead.” Fingers wiped away new tears. “It worked, sweetling. The wildfire took out the throne room and plenty of the Keep. And Ramsay.”

            “I’m not…”

            A sour smile spread across his lips, his face. “No, sweetling. Almost. I had to shoot to get him off of you, drag you far enough away. He got caught in the blast. And I hadn’t…” he paused, glancing away for a moment. She saw his mouth turn into a smile. “I hadn’t expected you to fill the role so _perfectly_. You were amazing, Sansa.”

            She gave a smile, too.

            They stayed there for a long while, content with the mere presence of the other. Content with the sight of the other, with the faint touch between them. Sansa’s skin was burning hottest wherever Petyr’s hands rested on her.

            The room was completely silent, silent save for the endless, pounding rain. Finally, Sansa spoke, “Now what?”

            Petyr’s thumb was brushing small movements over her shoulder. Her _bare_ shoulder. Sansa couldn’t remember if it was the throne or Ramsay or the explosion. Her clothes were rife with holes and tears. She could only laugh at what she imagined she looked like. Remembered the state of dress she was in when she first stumbled through the doors of his club. And yet – Petyr stared at her like she was the only important thing left in the world.

            “It’s your choice, sweetling,” he said. Sansa had stopped crying, and his hand was softy brushing at her hair. It was calming.

            Stay in King’s Landing – not likely. After everything that happened, Sansa never wanted to step near this city again. They could explore the vast expanse of Westeros and the countries across the sea, with no expectations. With the only constant in her life the presence of Petyr beside her.

            She managed to swallow, the saliva sticking to her throat on the way down. Water – she needed water.

            The rain. The rain only stayed in King’s Landing, or so Ramsay said. So he had planned. But he hardly stayed on course of any plan, whether he was following one or leading one.

            Her family was nestled in the far reaches of the North. Far enough from the rain. But were they safe? From the terror of rebellion, from the fear of the utter chaos in the South? From the threat of a family not content until they had _everything_?

            “Home.” Sansa stared into those deep, earthy eyes. Imagined if perhaps there was a different sort of home to be found within them. “I want to see my family. See if they’re okay.” She paused. “And then…”

            Petyr’s hands stopped their ministrations for a moment. He tilted his head, waiting for her to continue. When she didn’t, he asked, “And then?”

            It wasn’t a perfect future. But Sansa hadn’t the perfect life for that, not anymore. Those stories died a long time ago.

            She tried to lift her hand, but the pain was still too much. They would be stuck in King’s Landing for at least a few days, waiting for Sansa to recover. Assuming the food stores hadn’t been ransacked already or blown up, they could make it till then.

            Sansa motioned with her head to _come here_. She held back the wince from the movement. Petyr understood, leaning in, as if concerned she had lost her voice.

            “Closer,” she breathed, urging his face inches above hers. Sansa braced herself for the onslaught of pain, and rose to close the distance.

            Petyr’s lips were soft. Warm and inviting.

            There was no demand, no urgency. Petyr cradled her head with his hands. They let their bodies take over, let themselves speak through their kiss rather than their words. So many words, too many words – it wasn’t possible to convey the heaviness and the lightness in Sansa’s heart with words.

            She pulled back, just enough, to whisper into his mouth, “Where ever you want to go, I’ll follow.”

            She caught the turn of a smile on his lips. Caught the smile travel to Petyr’s eyes: an endless field during a spring rain. Like so many in the North she grew to call home. And in the home just inches before her.

            The rain continued as they pressed their lips together again. As Petyr’s hands warmed her, comforted her. She let the panic and the fear and the voices leave.

            Underneath the aches and horrors, there was _happiness_ , too.

            Sansa was finally going back North. Back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's over. It's like sending my firstborn off to college, honestly :(  
> To be honest, this story was meant to be a short warm up to get my creative flow going. The fact that it ended up so long and complex is amazing. And I want to thank all of you for reading and commenting and enjoying this crazy story!! :D  
> I have another story planned out, but I'll probably keep that for later (it's even longer than this one oops). Might write another oneshot or two, and that might include a teacher/student relationship because why not lol ;)
> 
> [For reference, the method used for getting rain to fall is called "cloud seeding", which is an interesting idea, but sadly not very practical in the real world.]


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